Sonic the Hedgehog: The Seven Slayers
by Santoryuu
Summary: Eggman unleashes his latest plot, releasing seven deadly robot soldiers on the city of Station Square. Can Sonic and his friends stop the evil madman once again, or is seven their unlucky number? Remember to R&R! Chapter 10: Mic Check
1. Prolouge to Pain

Disclaimer: We do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of his friends or enemies, but we do own our own, original characters.

A/N: This fic takes place in the world of the game rather than in the world of the anime shown on 4Kids TV. In other words, the events will follow that story, rather than the other. Also, this fic takes place after the events in the game Shadow the Hedgehog, just so you know.

A/N: This fic was written mainly by Older Hokage and I (Younger Hokage) but Hikari did give some very helpful suggestions. It will contain some pretty graphic stuff, but nothing too terrible, it will also use some inappropriate language for younger ears. This Fic is rated T just to be on the safe side.

And now,

Team Santoryuu presents

A Sonic the Hedgehog Fanfiction

**The Seven Slayers**

**Chapter 1: Prologue to Pain**

"At last," Eggman mumbled, "My ultimate fighting machines are ready!"

The round-bodied scientist stood in front of one of seven different colored pods in his laboratory. In the first one was a short, red robot shaped like a cat-person with a blade on its right arm that reached down to its ankles. Its chest was open in the front to reveal an indentation that was the same size and shape of a large gem.

The mad doctor pulled on his large mustache in excitement, "I can't believe I really got this thing ready!" He cheered, a large grin plastered on his face. "It took an entire year of sleep deprivation and way too much coffee but I did it!" he took a large red gem from his pocket and pressed a small, white button on the side of the robots container to open it, "This is it!"

Eggman shoved the red chaos emerald into the exposed socket on the robot and quickly closed its chest plate. The creature's eyes immediately lit up in a bright crimson light, and an electronic beep could be heard throughout the massive, almost empty room.

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It was about this time that two hedgehogs were riding down Main Street on a red and red motorcycle One had a chao in one arm and a suitcase in the other.

"Maybe this thing isn't worth taking. I mean, it's just a stupid shiny rock!" stated the driver as sirens could be heard getting ever closer to his location.

"Hey! What happened to you being the big strong man in my life?" screamed his accomplice as she tapped him on the back of his head…

Just than a bullet past them and ricocheted off of the wall of a building. "That." answered the first apparent criminal.

The driver of the cycle swerved to the left, and began dodging his vehicle between incoming cars in the opposite lane. Several motorists honked and shouted at the crazy driver as he blazed past.

"Buckle up for safety suckers!" The hedgehog taunted as he continued his ride.

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Further downtown, at the Station Square Performance Arena…

The audience was buzzing excitedly. The arena, which had been the host to numerous sporting events, concerts, and plays, was now giving its biggest performance since the concert to celebrate the destruction of Black Comet.

It had been one year since then, and the leaders of the world agreed that this day, the one that Shadow the Hedgehog had saved, was to be a globally celebrated holiday.

High above the audience, in a private box seat, a black hedgehog with red stripes was looking down on the crowd. He let out a frustrated sigh, and looked over to his two companions.

The first was the President. He was dressed in the stereotypical blue business suit, and smiled at the hero.

The other was a white furred bat, wearing a black, form fitting shirt and white boots and gloves. She seemed equally frustrated, but for other reasons…

"You could at least _try_ to have a good time." She sighed, "After all, this is supposed to be your day."

"Yes, sit down and enjoy the show!" The president offered, "I think you've earned it."

"_After a year of endless paparazzi, I'd imagine so."_ The hedgehog said to himself.

He reluctantly sat down next to the bat, who patted his hand gently.

"Oh, relax." She cooed, "At least it's not a classical concert, right?"

The hedgehog shivered a bit.

"Thank you for that unpleasant thought." He grumbled.

"Oh come on, I'm just kidding." The bat pouted.

"From what I heard, this band 'Rengade' is supposed to be pretty cool." The President stated.

"_Kids still say 'cool' these days, right?"_ He asked himself.

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Backstage, a few roadies were putting the finishing touches on the sound systems. As one of them twisted the volume knob on a large amp, a guitar rift suddenly blasted out of it!

The roadie stumbled backward, and shot a glance at a snickering anthro-raccoon holding a black guitar.

"I think that one's up a little too high." The raccoon commented, before being smacked in the back of the head.

"Real mature." Scoffed the silver furred fox-girl who had delivered the blow, "Why don't you grow up? We have a show to put on!"

"Oh relax," The raccoon grumbled, "It's not like we can start without…"

A loud crash caused both of them to turn to stage left. A black-scaled reptile of some type was detangling himself from a power cord.

"Sorry I'm late!" He gasped as he took a seat behind a nearby drum set, "I overslept."

"You always over sleep." The fox sighed.

"Hey, he's here now, right?" The raccoon pointed out, "You ready?"

"You bet!" The reptile cheered, as a pair of leathery, bat like wings spread behind him.

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In an undisclosed location, somewhere above the Mystic Ruins, a red echidna with impressive dreadlocks sat on the ground in front of a massive, green emerald. He was keeping a careful eye on the territory around him, as though an unseen assailant might approach his treasure.

"_That blue biplane I saw just now seemed pretty suspicious." _The echidna thought, _"I wonder what's going on back on the ground…"_

The emerald behind him began to pulse with green light, and then suddenly lit up like a spotlight! The echidna gasped, and turned to the gem.

"_What the...The Master Emerald is reacting to something! But what could…"_ He thought as he raced toward the gem.

Suddenly, a blue biplane shot by overhead. A scream could be heard as it passed by, and the emerald flared brighter. The plane then nose-dived away from the floating island, and the giant emerald ceased its glow.

"_Oh."_ The echidna thought, stopping right in front of the gem, _"Guess it was nothing to worry about."_

And with that thought, he resumed his post.

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In the meantime, in the jungles known as the Mystic Ruins, another trio was preparing for something. Two hedgehogs, a blue one in red sneakers, and a pink one wearing a red dress and matching boots, were looking to the sky. A mixture of shock, awe, and concern covered their faces.

"How long do you think he's gonna stay up there?" The blue hedgehog asked.

"I don't know…" the pink one said, turning to her companion with a smile, "But while he's up there, it's just you and me down here…"

"Not for long!" The blue one responded, grabbing the pink rodent's hand and dashing to the side with impossible speed.

A small, blue biplane smashed into the ground where the two had been standing moments before! The two wings bent upward, snapping off completely. The hedgehog pair stared at the wreckage, as a young fox climbed from the pilot's seat. His yellow-orange fur was covered in soot and dust, and both of his furry tails were completely bristled out.

"What happened?" The pink hedgehog girl asked.

"I think…the propeller…broke off." The fox gasped as he slid to the ground.

"How can you tell?" The blue one asked.

As if to answer his question, a sharp propeller blade suddenly sliced into the ground right between the three. It stopped in place, standing straight up, the other three blades up in the air.

"Oh." The blue hedgehog boy said, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Back to the drawing board then?" The pink hedgehog asked.

"As soon…as my heart…starts up again." The fox nodded, "And we'll need…this."

The fox reached into an open hole on the plane, and pulled out a glistening, purple gem, about the size of his fist…

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**_Hey, it's Sonic here! It looks like Eggman is up to his old tricks again, but who are these bikers and rock stars?_**

_**If you want to know, you'll have to check our next chapter. It's called:**_

_**Cops and Robbers**_

_**See you there!**_


	2. Cops and Robbers

A/N: I know we just started yesterday, but we figured we should have more here than just the prologue chapter. From now on, we update once a week and Wednesdays.

_**This is Shadow, the ultimate life form Since the Black Arms attack, Station Square has been trying to rebuild**_

_**Unfortunately, some of the criminal element is hindering the progress**_

_**Much of the city has successfully been reconstructed.**_

_**However, it still has a crime problem**_

_**As well as horrible taste in music…**_

**Chapter 2**

**Cops and Robbers**

It was almost ten PM, and the Station Square Prison was home to two new "guests".

In the first cell on the third floor was a red hedgehog with several very short spikes and golden eyes. He wore baggy, black pants that were held up by a leather belt that had a brass buckle. His gray sneakers had been worn down, but it was possible to see that they were once a very nice pair of white sneakers (from the looks of their owner though, they were probably stolen).

A purple hedgehog occupied the cell next to his with her quills let down to the middle of her back; it looked more like a haircut than defensive spikes. She wore a strange, long sleeved, black and white dress that went just below here knees and looked like a swirling checkerboard. A pair of boots, one black and one white, kept her feet and ankles covered and made it look like it would really hurt if she kicked you.

"Hey, Rave," said the purple Hedgehog, "Why are we in here again?"

The red hedgehog, who was apparently named Rave answered, "Because apparently, Op, they outlawed having any fun in this city if it involves our favorite activities."

Op thought hard for a moment, than her grey eyes widened with a sudden realization, "You mean armed robbery and resisting arrest?" she guessed happily.

"That's right babe, or as the cops call it; 'wrong'." was Raves response.

Just than, a chao entered the hall, she was mostly black except for the purple "X" shape on her belly and the purple stripes on her arms. The spiky ball hovering just over her head showed the content of her character; she was a dark chao. A small pink backpack was carried on her back.

Op's attention was immediately drawn to the little creature and her blue eyes lit up. "Look Ravey baby! It's Ex!" the girl almost squealed in glee.

Rave went to the front of his cell and reached his hand through the bars. With a smile he called the chao over, "Hey Ex, have you got the keys?"

The proud little creature smiled and took a ring of keys from her pack.

"Good girl, now unlock the cells." Rave ordered.

Ex lifted the keys up as she flew into the air and left the backpack she was wearing on the ground. When she reached the keyhole on the lock, she shoved a key in. To Raves luck, it fit. Ex did a barrel role to turn the key until she heard a "click".

The door swung open as Ex fell to ground with a small grunt. Rave stepped out and took the keys from the lock, than he opened the door for Op.

"Thanks hon." She said, brushing some of the dust from the cell off of her clothes.

As they were about to open the door to the hall, it swung open to reveal a guard on the other side. He looked very surprised as Rave's fist collided with his head, sending him to the ground.

"Rave: One, Boys in Blue: Zero" Rave joked cruelly.

The other prisoners cheered as the villainous youths ran from sight and a series of shouts and crashing sounds could be heard in the next room.

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Back at the Station Square arena, the crowd was beginning to get restless. The show had been scheduled to start about fifteen minutes ago, and the curtains hadn't even opened yet. Up in the private box, the black hedgehog stood near the window, watching as the audience became more agitated. He sighed, and turned back toward his chair with a sweep of his red and black quills, and slowly moved his sneakered feet back towards his seat.

"Shadow, just take a seat." The white furred bat muttered, "You're starting to make me more antsy than the audience!"

Shadow sighed, and turned to his companion. Her wings were folded neatly behind her back, and she was currently wearing a black leotard with white boots and a pink, heart shaped breastplate.

"Sorry Rouge, but this isn't exactly top on my list of 'favorite ways to spend the evening.'" Shadow whispered to her, "If I wanted to hear bad music, I could just stay at home and listen to the radio…"

"You've never even heard this band before." Rouge scolded, "I heard they're pretty good."

Shadow opened his mouth to reply, when a loud shriek echoed through the area! He and Rouge covered their ears, wincing in pain. The noise quickly died off, and the two of them looked at each other.

"What was _that!_" Shadow shouted, going back to the window.

Down near the stage, the audience had settled down. The stage curtains had lifted, and there were three unidentifiable figures now standing in front of the audience. A spotlight went on, highlighting a snickering raccoon.

He had gray fur, a bushy tail with black and gray stripes, and the typical stripe of black around his eyes that looked like a mask. He was wearing jet-black sneakers and biker gloves, and he was carrying a black electric guitar. Shadow noticed that to the left of the raccoon's left eye was a crescent-shaped patch of white fur that looked like a crescent moon and stood out against the black fur around it.

"Sorry about that folks!" The raccoon announced, "But now that we have your attention allow us to introduce our selves…"

The raccoon suddenly burst into an amazing guitar solo! The audience fell silent, and Shadow sighed and turned toward Rouge. The bat was smiling, as the solo, worthy of any rock star, was brought to a close.

"For those who don't know, I'm Ringo." The raccoon announced.

A second light turned on, this one focused on a silver furred fox girl. She was wearing a yellow tank top and shorts (her sleek tail poking out the back), plus white sneakers. She flashed a pearly white smile to the audience, and threw them a wink, drawing attention to a red patch of fur around her left eye. The only non-silver fur on her body, or so it would appear, this interesting mark was shaped like a heart.

She held a red bass, and quickly strummed out a remarkable bass solo to match her partner's skill from earlier. As she finished, she flashed another smile, and held up her fingers in a victory sign.

"Name's Silvia." She said with a grin, "Nice to see you all here…"

She was cut off as a third spotlight fell onto the last figure, behind the other two. He was sitting behind a deep blue drumset, and carried a pair of drumsticks.

This one looked like some sort of alligator at first glance, but on a closer look Shadow saw that wasn't the case. For one thing, his scales were pitch black, but still had a shiny luster that reflected some of the stage light. His snout was slightly shorter and more pointed than a gator's as well, and the scales on his stomach were a midnight blue. He had a pair of white horns, one over each eye, which sloped toward the back of his head. To top it all off, he smiled as he spread out his arms…

And a pair of leathery, bat like wings spread until they were even with his arm span! His heavy tail thumped against the floor a few times, right before he launched into a drum solo. Shadow watched carefully, following the movements of his hands.

"Pretty good, wouldn't you say?" Rouge asked as Shadow returned to his seat.

"A raccoon, a fox, and a dragon." Shadow muttered, "I'm assuming they're not just the opening act."

"Looks that way." Rouge nodded, "This'll be there first big concert here in Station Square."

The drum solo ended, and the black dragon flashed a grin to the audience, revealing an orange mark across his left eye that looked like a scar.

"And I'm Drake." He stated, twirling his drumsticks.

"So, you ready for RENEGADE?" Ringo shouted to the audience.

The entire audience roared in approval, and Drake thumped his tail against the ground. Ringo smiled at Silvia as the drum beat started. Ringo began to strum a few cords, and then began the first song of the evening.

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Back at the Police Station, Rave and Op had managed to recover their motorcycle. It had only taken a few good blows to knock off the braces that held the wheels in place, and now the two of them were heading toward the city streets once again. Rave had both his hands on the handlebars, focused on his driving. Op was carrying Ecstasy under her left arm, and their mysterious package under the right.

Two officers tried to get between them and freedom, but they were smart enough to dive to the side before being run over.

"Ravey, you forgot your weapon!" Op shouted over the roar of the engine.

"No I didn't." Rave responded as he pulled a u-turn, "Hang on!"

The bike was now pointing back at the station, or more specifically at a window near the corner of the building. Rave revved the engine, and drove forward, pulling the front wheel up and causing the bike to jump! It soared gracefully through the air, and smashed through the large pane of glass, granting entry to the hooligans. The two of them were now in the evidence locker room, and Rave got down from his bike.

He looked around the room and smiled as he saw a large shadow in one corner, behind a heavy metal gate. He shook the gate with one hand, and frowned as he realized it was locked tight. A whimper of fear drew his attention, and he turned to see a man in a police uniform on the floor, staring at him in shock.

"You have the key to this?" Rave asked, jabbing a thumb to the gate.

"Why would I give it to you?" The officer asked, grabbing a large key ring at his side.

He yelped in pain as the dark chao suddenly dug her teeth into his hand. He pulled his hand back, and the chao snatched the key ring and tossed it to Rave.

"Thanks." Rave smirked as he quickly unlocked the gate.

In one swift motion, he swung the gate open, reached in and pulled out the object. It looked like a large sword, wrapped in a leather sheath with some old rubber tire pieces covering the hilt. Op winced as Rave swung the weapon, and knocked the officer out with the broadside of the sheathed sword.

"Okay, we can go now." Rave said as manually turned the bike around and climbed on.

He strapped the sword to his back, and Ex leapt back into Op's arms. In a flash, the two of them burst back through the window and out into the city streets.

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At the concert, the audience was roaring with applause as Renegade's first song of the evening came to a close. On stage, Ringo and his band mates were setting up for the next song. Up in the private box, Shadow had a scowl on his face.

"People call _this _music?" He grumbled, "I've heard better notes come out of a busted pen!"

"Oh lighten up, you're here to have fun, remember?" Rouge muttered, elbowing the disgruntled hedgehog.

"Though I have to admit, this isn't my favorite genre either." The President sighed.

"And we salute you Mr. President." Shadow sighed in return.

On the stage, Ringo stepped back up to the microphone.

"Okay, before we play anymore tonight, we just want to give a big thanks to The President and Shadow the Hedgehog for being here!" Ringo called out.

The audience began to cheer again, and Shadow sighed once more. He was seriously lamenting the fact that the Chaos Emeralds were scattered around the planet at the moment.

"_Just one emerald and I could Chaos Control out of here!"_ He thought angrily.

Rouge elbowed him, forcing him out of his thoughts and bringing his attention back to the stage. Silvia had just started another bass line, and Drake was pounding out his opening beat on the drums. As Ringo lifted his guitar to begin though, the roar of an engine broke in over the music.

Ringo looked over his shoulder as his friends stopped playing. All three looked confused as to where the noise was coming from…

When the sound of glass shattering filled the area! The roaring grew louder, and the band dove aside as a motorcycle crashed down onto the stage from the ceiling!

A red hedgehog looked up in the direction he came from and huffed a bit.

"Bullet proof lexan my ass!" He laughed, "And who puts a glass ceiling over a stage anyway?"

"I bet it looks really cool in the moonlight." Commented the purple hedgehog sitting behind him; a chao perched on her shoulder (and looking slightly dizzy after the crash landing.)

"What the…Who are you two!" Ringo shouted as he stormed up to the cyclists.

The duo looked up at him, and the red hedgehog smiled and pulled a large sword from his back. He effortlessly began to rotate it over his head, and Ringo quickly stepped back to avoid being hit.

"Remember this name!" The sword wielder laughed as he stabbed his weapon into the stage, "Rave the Hedgehog, Terror of the Highways!"

The girl behind him smiled and flashed a victory sign.

"My name's Op, and this is Ex." She smiled, the chao on her shoulder jumping onto her head, "Now, who are you?"

"Extremely pissed off." Ringo growled, "We're in the middle of a concert here!"

Looking around, Rave and Op noticed the audience and amps around them. Rave got off his cycle, put his sword away, and smirked.

"Hmm…so you are." He observed as he grabbed the microphone.

He held it up and smiled as he lifted his sword in his free hand.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you've been a great audience." He shouted, causing many concert goers to cover their ears, "Peace, we outta here!"

With that, he climbed back on the bike and turned it toward the audience. Everyone quickly scattered as the rebel blasted of the stage and past the crowd! They burst through the exit gate, and tore back down the street.

Up in the private box, Shadow smiled for the first time that evening and leapt to his feet.

"Sorry Mr. President, but I think I'd better get after those two." Shadow said.

"Um…" The President stammered.

Before he or Rouge could say a word, Shadow was dashing out of the arena, heading after the delinquent duo as his hover skates kicked in.

"_Now this is more like it."_ He thought with a smile as he skated effortlessly down the road.

On stage, Ringo was grumbling to himself over all the commotion that had been caused. As he picked up his miraculously unharmed guitar, a man wearing a security uniform ran onto the stage and whispered something to him. The raccoon looked shocked, then sighed as he stepped up to the microphone.

"Sorry everybody looks like tonight's show will have to be cancelled in light of…recent events." Ringo grumbled, "Please contact the box office about the rain date for the show."

With that, he glanced at Silvia and Drake, both of whom followed him off stage as security began filing everyone out of the building.

"Just great." Rouge growled as she got to her feet, "I'm going after Shadow, see ya later sir."

Rouge saluted and then headed out the door, leaving The President with no one but his security team.

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Rave, Op, and Ex were all laughing as they roared down the city streets, scattering traffic and pedestrians alike. Rave stopped laughing for a second as he weaved past a block of cars at a stoplight, and passed the stop line just as the light turned green. He then resumed his laughter right where he had left off.

"That was too easy!" He chortled as he sheathed the sword, "My easiest jailbreak yet!"

"And we still have the pretty, yellow emerald!" Op cheered, holding up the metal suitcase they'd taken from the evidence locker.

Ex giggled and jumped on top of the case. She grabbed on with her little puffball hands, the spike ball over her head bobbing in the wind of the motorcycle.

Rave smiled as he swung his vehicle around the corner, onto a much clearer street with no other traffic (quite surprising in the city). He smiled as he pushed the engine to its limits, going even faster now that the road was clear. Just ahead though, he saw a figure walk into the center of the road. Gasping, he cut the engine and applied his brakes, causing the bike to leave skid marks on the road. Op and Ex held on tight as they came to a screeching halt.

In front of the halted bike stood a strange figure. It was a robot, to be sure, but a very strange one. It was bright red all over, and stood at the same height as Rave. It seemed to be cat-like, with an angry glare in its soulless eyes. Rave glared angrily at the mecha in front of him, and climbed off his bike. He stomped up to the being, and smacked it in the head with his fist.

"What is your problem!?" He shouted, "You don't walk into the middle of a road that I'm driving on! Are you crazy…er…than me?!"

The robot didn't respond, but merely held its right arm up in front of the red hedgehog. As it did, a long blade extended from its wrist, and it threateningly waved the weapon at its aggressor.

"That's a yes." Rave grumbled as he unsheathed his own sword.

"Now let's have none of that!" A voice called out from above.

Rave and his opponent looked up to see a strange, egg-shaped vehicle hovering overhead. It slowly lowered to the ground, showing the occupant to be an egg-shaped human in a red coat and goggles. He turned to the robot and shook a disapproving finger.

"Now what did I say Slayer Red?" He scolded, "You're not supposed to just go looking for trouble! I told you to find the other Chaos Emeralds…."

"Chaos Emeralds?" Op interrupted.

"So that's what this is all about then." A calm voice said from nearby.

Everyone turned, and gasped as a familiar black hedgehog with red streaked quills skated up.

"Shadow!" The human shouted angrily.

"What's up Eggman? Looking for the emeralds again?" Shadow taunted, "I assume that's why your little tinker-toy stopped these two."

Eggman blinked in surprise, and turned to Slayer Red. The robot nodded in confirmation, and pointed to Op's case, which Ex was still clinging to.

"So that's it." Eggman smiled, "Slayer Red, you handle Shadow, I'll take care of the emerald."

The robot nodded again, and turned to Shadow. Shadow smirked, and charged forward, slamming his fist against the machine's chest. It went flying backwards, and slammed into the ground…

But stood right back up again. Shadow blinked in surprise, and as he did Slayer Red closed the gap between them and swung his weapon toward Shadow's throat! Shadow gasped and leaned back, the blade barely missing its target.

"_Might be a bit tougher than I expected."_ Shadow admitted to himself as his foe pressed its attacks.

As Shadow and Slayer Red continued to fight, Eggman just smiled as he turned to Rave and Op.

"So, the two of you have one of the seven Chaos Emeralds?" He guessed, his voice filled with fake enthusiasm.

"Yeah, what's it to you baldy?" Rave snapped.

"I have a business proposition that you two might find very intriguing." Eggman explained, "If you'd come with me, we can discuss the possibility of global conquest, perhaps?"

Rave and Op both gave the doctor a suspicious glare.

"How do we know we can trust you?" Op asked, clutching the case against her chest (and accidentally squishing Ex).

"Well, I could have just let Slayer Red over there cut you to ribbons." Eggman pointed out with a smile.

Shadow had just dodged another slash, and tried to deliver a sweeping kick to his foe. Red just jumped over the blow, and brought his blade in a downward arch toward the hedgehog. Shadow rolled aside, and got back to his feet, barely dodging another slash aimed at his midsection.

"What is that thing anyway?" Rave asked.

"Nothing to be trifled with, I assured you." Eggman gloated, "Now, about our business deal?"

Rave glared at the human next to him, and smirked a bit.

"Take us to your HQ, and we'll talk there." He said.

"What!" Shadow shouted as he ducked under a jab.

Red's blade sank into the wall of the building Shadow had been standing in front of and stuck fast. The bot began to tug on his weapon, attempting to dislodge it.

"You two can't trust Eggman!" Shadow warned.

"And you're saying we can trust you Mr. Has-his-own-holiday?" Rave snarled, "Listen, I don't like playing hero. Unless you want to die, you'll stay out of our way, Bigshot."

Shadow grimaced a bit at the insult, and Eggman laughed as his hovering machine floated back to its overhead position.

"Just follow me kids!" Eggman invited as he took off toward the city limits.

Rave climbed onto his motorcycle and revved the engine. Op and Ex cheered as it sparked to life and they took off after Eggman.

Shadow just watched as they drove off. Hearing a whistling noise behind him, he ducked. Red's blade passed over his head, as the robot ran past him, following Dr. Eggman. Shadow just watched it run off and shook his head.

"This isn't how I wanted to end a Saturday." He mumbled.

---

_**Wow, I had to deal with biker punks and second-rate musicians both in the same day.**_

_**I guess I can worry about it later; Eggman has a Chaos Emerald!**_

_**I have to warn Sonic and the others, this is big trouble**_

_**Want to see what happens? Check out the next chapter. It's called:**_

_**Not So Early Warning**_

_**Did I mention I hate Renegade's music?**_


	3. Not So Early Warning

Disclaimer: We do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of his friends or enemies, but we do own our own, original characters.

_**Hi there! I'm Amy Rose; Sonic's girlfriend (I think).**_

_**Last chapter, Shadow had his first encounter with Eggman's newest robot**_

_**But, I think there might be even more dangerous battles ahead.**_

_**Oh… I hope my Sonic keeps out of trouble even he does still have to save the day.**_

_**I can't stand thinking about it anymore! Start the next chapter!**_

**Chapter 3**

**Not So Early Warning**

Sonic's eyes scanned over the clear-blue sky over the Mystic Ruins. He was leaning back on top of the workshop, enjoying a peaceful breeze that was blowing over him.

The jungles around Tail's workshop were silent this morning. Not even an insect disturbed the canopy's leaves. Sonic had figure it was due to all of the racket that Tails had made last night. After the crash landing in the Tornado, He had spent at least an hour transferring the remains of his plane into the hanger. Then another six repairing it back to its former glory. And finally, the twin-tailed fox had pulled an all-nighter putting in some new upgrades he had invented.

In Sonic's opinion, the forest critters had probably been kept up just as late as his young friend. Tails hadn't called it quits until five a.m. (at the earliest) and was somehow up by eight, ready to test his modifications.

Amy had gone home roughly ten last night, saying the racket Tails was making ruined the romantic atmosphere. For that matter, he had to agree that the noise had been bothersome…maybe he would just take a little nap.

"Sonic, you there?" Tail's voice crackled from next to his ear.

Sonic sat up with a start, glancing to where the voice had come from. He let out a sigh and picked up the radio from where he had set it down just a moment before.

"Yeah bro, go ahead." Sonic said, stifling a yawn.

Looking up, Sonic could now see the blue bi-plane "Tornado." It was circling over the workshop, and Tails waved down to him before talking into his radio again.

"Something's wrong with the Tornado…I think that this new power system isn't working the way I planned." Tails said, sounding a touch worried, "Could you set up the runway so I can land?"

"No problem, the switch is still in the garage right?" Sonic asked as he hopped to his feet.

"Right." Tails confirmed.

Sonic stretched a bit, and then smiled. In a blur of blue, he had jumped down from the roof, raced around to the side of the workshop, and dashed into the garage. His white-gloved hand was on the switch that would drop the palm trees and reveal Tails' personal launch pad when a new sound reached his ears.

"Sonic?" Tails spoke over the radio, "What's wrong?"

Sonic listened for a minute, and realized what the sound was.

"I think your phone is ringing." Sonic responded, "Hang in there for a minute, I'll be right back."

"Sonic…" Tails started to protest.

Before things could go any farther, the high-velocity hedgehog had set down his communicator on the near by workbench. He dashed through the door leading into the main workshop/living area of Tails' home.

The room wasn't quite what one would expect from a child living on his own. Beyond a smaller work bench littered with minor projects was a living room with a couch (salvaged from a junk heap and reupholstered with blue fabric by Amy), a small television, and a coffee table with a phone on it (both also salvaged and repaired by Tails himself).

At the moment, the phone was ringing, and almost shaking itself off the table in the process. Sonic scooped up the receiver with a smile.

"Hello, Tails' Workshop. This is Sonic speaking." He said.

"Sonic…I had a feeling I'd find you here." Said a cold, hushed voice on the other end.

Sonic blinked in astonishment as he almost lost his grip on the phone.

"Shadow?!" He asked, "Long time since we heard from you!'

"Yes, well…I've been trying to avoid paparazzi and fans." Shadow's voice grumbled, "I'm not comfortable with the whole idea of being a celebrity."

"Word is you were at that concert last night." Sonic said with a smug tone.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have been if Rouge hadn't… wait, how did you know I was there?" Shadow gasped.

Sonic smiled as he took a seat on the couch and flicked on the T.V. The daily news lit up on the screen, with the words "Mysterious Thief Duo eludes police at concert." scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

"Looks like the media managed to get a shot of you chasing that biker that trashed the concert." Sonic explained, "It was all over the news last night, and it looks like they still haven't caught those guys."

"Hey, you want to try catching them?" Shadow challenged, "Those two have Eggman's help now."

"Eggman?" Sonic asked, "You serious?"

"Unfortunately." Shadow growled, "And to make things…. Um…what's that buzzing noise? Is that just the phone?"

Sonic pricked up his ears, and realized that there was, indeed, a loud buzzing noise behind him. And it was getting louder…

And was being accompanied by a scream. Sonic now remembered that he hadn't lowered the runway yet.

"Oops, better call you back Shadow!" Sonic yelled, moving to hang-up the phone.

"Sonic wait! I'm on a pay phone…" Shadow shouted.

The phone landed in its cradle as Sonic re-entered the garage and slammed his hand on the runway's switch. The palm trees leading to the cliff edge outside fell down, lying just over the sea below, and a strip of black asphalt extended from the cliff over the sea. Sonic moved aside, and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the Tornado swoop around and level toward the strip.

With a bump, the plane touched down and began to roll toward the garage. But it was still moving too fast, and Sonic realized Tails wouldn't stop in time…

_CRASH!_

Sonic had leapt clear of the impact sight just in time. Tails let out a scream as he landed roughly next to his hero, and grunted as the wind was knocked out of him.

"You okay Tails?" Sonic asked, helping the Kitsune to his feet.

"Fine…" Tails gasped, trying to recover, "How's…. Tornado?"

Sonic looked over and let out a low whistle.

"Well, the paint seems scraped, and I'm pretty sure you busted one of the wings again…But it didn't completely fall apart this time." He described.

Tails winced as he moved toward his aircraft, and then he breathed a pained sigh.

"Looks like those extra shock absorbers and the new material I made the body out of paid off." He said, running a hand over the plane's exterior, "I wonder why it didn't stop though…"

His curiosity piqued, Tails got down on all fours to check the underside of his plane. As he did, Sonic noticed something lying next to his radio on the workbench. Picking it up, he cleared his throat.

"Tails, you think this might be it?" Sonic asked, holding up his discovery.

Tails peeked out from under the plane, and laughed in an embarrassed sort of way as he crawled out and claimed the part.

"Right…I guess in all the excitement of my new energy system I forgot to reinstall the brakes…" He said sheepishly, "So, umm…who was on the phone?"

"Oh, it was Shadow." Sonic said with a smile.

"Shadow?" Tails asked.

"Yeah, remember the concert Rouge dragged him too?' Sonic asked with a smile.

"The one I couldn't get tickets for?" Tails grumbled.

"Yeah, that's it." Nodded the hedgehog, "Looks like two crazy kids crashed it. And then, they ran off and joined up with Eggman."

Tails' eyes widened, and then he let out a frustrated sigh.

"Eggman again." He grumbled, "Is it just me, or have his ideas actually been getting more pathetic? I mean, using the Eclipse Cannon a couple years back was evil…but that whole Extreme World Race six months ago was the worst scheme I've ever heard of!"

"At least we made some new friends with that one." Sonic pointed out, "Wonder what he's planning with those concert crashers though. Eggman's plans may have been slipping lately, but they would have worked if we hadn't been there to stop him."

"Good point." Tails nodded as he picked up a wrench, and set to work on the Tornado, "Did Shadow mention anything else?"

"Actually…" Sonic began.

Then he stopped, and slapped his forehead; "Actually I hung up on him when I heard the Tornado come in. And he said he was calling from a pay phone too…"

"Great." Tails sighed, "Well, at least things can't get worse."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

On board the new egg carrier, Eggman was proving Tails's statement wrong.

He had led Rave and Op into his flying laboratory. The room was bare except for a worktable and seven, multi colored pods. All of the pods were closed except one, which had Red standing in front of it.

Rave looked around the room for a moment. Looking unimpressed he asked the doctor, "So what's with the pods? You makin' pod people or something?"

"No, no," Eggman answered, "The creatures inhabiting these pods will be very useful soon enough, but first I'll need that chaos emerald."

Op took the yellow emerald out of the suitcase and handed it over to Eggman. Ex and Eggman both got the same expression on their faces; like a kid in a candy store.

Before anyone could say anything though, Ex had latched onto the gem with her teeth!

"Hey! Get off you little glutton!" The doctor shouted at the little chao, trying to pull her off the emerald. The creature showed remarkable jaw strength as she refused to relinquish what she believed was hard candy.

Rave turned to Op and told her, "I have a feeling this is gonna be a loooooooong day."

The purple hedgehog giggled slightly and held her arms out toward Ex. "Come here Exy! Come to Mommy!" She cheerfully called to the chao.

Ex immediately let go of the emerald and flew over to Op, being embraced upon reaching her.

Rave was still chuckling to himself as Eggman opened one of the pods. Inside the pod was another cat-like robot, but this one was yellow and considerably bulkier than the one called, "Slayer Red". It had no visible weapons and stood almost as big as the mad doctor.

"Prepare to meet your new team mate," Eggman told the others as he opened the machine's chest and placed the chaos emerald inside, "Slayer Yellow…"

---

**_It looks like Sonic didn't have to fight this time, that's good, more time for taking me on dates!_**

**_Hey, wait, what's that "Slayer Yellow" thing? _**

**_Maybe we'll find out next time. The next chapter is called; _**

**Something Wicked This Way Comes…**

**_See you there!_**


	4. Something Wicked This Way Comes

Disclaimer: We do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of his friends or enemies, but we do own our own, original characters.

_**Hi, I'm Tails, the two tailed fox and inventor.**_

_**A lot of people think Shadow and Sonic look alike, but they're completely different.**_

_**I'm sure Shadow can be a nice guy if he wanted to be…**_

_**He just doesn't want to be.**_

_**Well, let's start the next chapter. (Fangirls rejoice, Shadow is in this one)**_

**Chapter 4**

**Something Wicked This Way Comes…**

While Sonic, Tails, and Eggman were all working out their respective plans, another group back in the city was waiting over by Station Square's train station.

Drake was idly scuffing his sandaled feet against the ground, munching on a bagel that he had grabbed before he and his band mates had left their hotel room (a rather nice one also, provided by their record company). As he munched on the plain-tasting breakfast he struggled to ignore Silvia and Ringo, who were having a minor disagreement about how to best handle concert crashers.

"I'm telling you Ringo, we should just leave this to the police!" Silvia said, trailing after the raccoon as he paced back and forth.

He spun around, and pounded one fist into his open palm.

"Listen Silvia, we worked hard to try and make a name for ourselves here." He said, straining to remain calm, "It wasn't easy either, especially since we wound up in this world shortly after Shadow became such a big hero."

"_Here we go again."_ Drake lamented, having heard this speech before.

Seeing no reason to even pretend to listen, the dragon folded his wings across his back, stuffed the last of the bagel in his mouth, and lay down on the bench to try and take a nap.

While Drake was focusing on ignoring the speech, Ringo had continued.

"We tried making our dreams come true for two years back in our world. Even after we got here, it took almost another year of talent competitions, playing on the streets, and practice, but we finally managed to make it." Ringo declared, swinging his bushy tail for emphasis, "And if some punk biker, for one minute, thinks he can just crash one of our concerts, show us absolutely no respect, and then just drive off, he is _sorely_ mistaken!"

Ringo stopped, and took a deep breath. Silvia sighed, and walked over to the bench, leaning against the arm of it upon seeing that Drake was taking up the length.

"You know what Ringo, I'm just not gonna try to argue with you." She admitted, "I think this is one of your worst ideas yet, but when you pull out that speech you are just impossible to reason with."

Drake sighed. He was used to Ringo and Silvia having spats like this, but they always got over it soon enough.

"_Just one of the things that comes with knowing someone too well."_ He thought, _"We've been together since we were little kids, and Silvia knows that Ringo just needs to work this out of his system."_

Ringo and Silvia locked eyes, trying to stare each other down. Neither of them noticed as two more figures entered the train station, but Drake certainly did. He sat up (being careful not to scratch Silvia with his horns) as he recognized one of them.

For who could ever mistake the black and red hedgehog that had become an almost instant hero? Shadow had just stepped into the station, and was walking toward the empty bench nearby. His companion (whom Drake recognized as Shadow's bat companion from the night before) took a seat next to him, and sighed.

"Hey guys…" Drake said, trying to get his teammates' attention.

Drake looked up at his friends and sighed. They were too preoccupied in the staring contest to give him the slightest bit of attention. Drake watched as Rouge turned toward Shadow and tried to start a conversation.

---

Sitting about fifteen feet from the silent argument between Silvia and Ringo, Rouge turned to Shadow.

"So, how did that phone call go?" She asked.

"He hung up." Shadow grumbled, "Blue boy hung up on me, before I could explain things. So we are going to Mystic Ruins to have a little chat with the idiot."

"Come on Shadow, Sonic isn't that dumb." Rouge sighed, slumping down in her seat.

"Are you sure?" Shadow retorted, "Really? I can't tell whether he's dumb or just reckless…"

"Aw, it's just the press making you like this." Rouge said, stroking Shadow's shoulder a bit.

"Of course it's the press making me like this!" Shadow shouted, "If one more reporter waves a microphone at me, I swear…"

Shadow stopped in mid rant, and looked over his shoulder. He spotted Drake, who was still observing him and Rouge.

"What are you looking at?" He growled.

Drake quickly looked away, but Ringo's ears perked up suddenly. He broke off eye contact with Silvia, and turned around.

"Hey, I recognize that voice." He said, spotting Shadow, "No way…it's really…"

Before Ringo could get any further with his sentence, Shadow had made it the fifteen feet to him and clapped a hand over his muzzle.

"Do not say my name." He growled, "It's like a magnet for reporters these days. Especially after those biker punks got away. Understand?"

Ringo nodded, and the disgruntled hedgehog released his mouth. Silvia had moved back into a full standing position, and moved between Shadow and Ringo before either could say another word.

"So how did that biker get away from you anyway?" She asked.

Shadow scowled, but sighed. He realized that these kids probably wouldn't leave him alone unless he spoke with them. Thankfully, the train was starting to pull up.

"Let's get on the train, we'll talk about it once we're on our way." He said, "That is, if you're all getting on this train."

"If it goes to Mystic Ruins, that's ours." Ringo confirmed.

---------------------

Aboard the Egg-carrier, Rave looked inquisitively at Eggman.

"Mystic Ruins?" he asked, "Why the hell would I want to go to that dump?"

The doctor grinned and began stroking his mustache. A maniacal chuckle crept from his throat and it made his round body jiggle. Op didn't get what was so funny until she took a second or two to think about it. That's when it hit her…

"Because that's where the next emerald will be!" she realized.

Eggman nodded. "That's right, and the slayers are going with you." He confirmed.

Slayers red and yellow stood at attention and saluted.

Just than, a loud siren was heard throughout the air-ship. The slayers rushed to the windows and Rave drew his sword. Op held Ex tightly, nearly strangling the poor little chao.

Eggman appeared intrigued by the sound. Rubbing his chin, he thought aloud, "That's interesting…"

Rave shot an angered look at the madman. "What's interesting?" he asked.

"It appears we've found an emerald earlier than I planned." Eggman explained, "Rave, get on your motorcycle and check it out. According to our course, we should be over some train tracks right now."

Op loosened her grip on Ex and stepped forward. "Ravey doesn't go anywhere without me!" she cheered.

And with that, the two hedgehogs ran to the docking bay, where Rave's bike was kept.

------------------------

"So why are you three going to Mystic Ruins?" Rouge asked her latest traveling companions.

The train had been going for about ten minutes now, with Rouge, Shadow, and the Renegade sharing a car in somewhat awkward silence.

Ringo looked away from the advertisements posted above the seats, and smiled. But before he could say a word, Silvia chimed in.

"Oh, Ringo here wants to get even with those biker punks that interrupted our concert last night." Silvia explained with a sigh (in a sarcastic tone), "So he's dragging us all out to ask Sonic the Hedgehog for help. We heard Sonic hangs out around the Mystic Ruins, so…"

Ringo's tail began to bristle again, as he turned to the bassist. Drake rolled his eyes and leaned forward in his seat.

"Those two have been arguing about this plan since last night." He whispered to Shadow, who was sitting in the seat across from him.

Shadow just huffed in response, watching as Ringo and Silvia began what promised to be a fresh argument regarding this plan. Rouge frowned, and was about to say something when Drake shook his head.

"I wouldn't try to interrupt them." He said as the duo moved toward the far end of the car, "They get along fine most of the time, but once they start fighting there's no way to stop them until one of them gives in."

"How long does that usually take?" Rouge asked, trying to ignore the slowly escalating voices.

"Varies." Drake answered with a shrug and a flap of his wings, "They got over dishwasher duty in under an hour last week, but I think they still can't agree on who was supposed to take care of organizing our demo tapes last year."

Silvia and Ringo now seemed to be in the midst of another staring much, an uncomfortable silence hanging between them. Shadow stood up from his seat, and stretched his legs a little.

"So is it true what Silvia said?" He asked, "You guys are looking to get Sonic's help?"

"Ringo was thinking of hiring you also." Drake said, paying no attention to his band mates' silent argument, "But he didn't seem to think you were a real fan of our music. He thought it might be better to try Sonic, if we could find him."

"I see…" Shadow nodded, looking over to Silvia and Ringo.

"And I still say we should just forget this idea and get ready for the rain-date." Silvia said.

"Why'd they cancel the concert any how?" Rouge asked, "It was just a broken window…"

"Those two punks were escapees from Station Square Jail." Ringo said, his eyes locked on Silvia's, "The cops wanted to bring in any one that could have gotten a good look at them, including us."

"Worst after show party ever." Drake grumbled.

"And you three decided to see if Sonic will fight this guy for you?" Shadow asked, "Why not deal with him yourselves if you care that much."

Ringo was about to answer, but Silvia beat him to the punch once more.

"Ringo thinks that if Sonic takes this guy out for us, it will send a message to potential concert crashers." She said, "'If they see one of the biggest heroes on Earth take out someone that wrecked one of our shows, no one will ever want to mess with us again.' Those were his exact words."

"You know what Silvia? I don't need…" Ringo began.

He trailed off in mid-sentence. His ears twitched a bit, and he turned toward the windows.

"What's up?" Drake asked, pulling himself to attention.

"You guys hear that?" Ringo asked, holding a hand next to his ear.

The other four occupants of the card fell silent. Rouge closed her eyes, and nodded.

"I hear something." She said, "Sounds sort of familiar…"

"I don't hear anything." Shadow said, shaking his head.

"It's a motorcycle…" Ringo said, walking toward the windows, "In fact…It's the same one from last night!"

------------------

A few minutes ago…

Rave and Op went shooting out of the Egg Fortress's hangar, riding on Rave's motorcycle. The bike began to fishtail after it made its short fall from the low flying aircraft, but Rave quickly regained control and pointed the bike alongside the train tracks.

"So how far ahead is this train?" asked Op.

Rave accelerated as he answered, "About a mile, we'll be there in a couple of minutes."

Just as the biker said this, the back of the train could be seen over the horizon.

"Make that seconds." Rave corrected himself.

----------------

"Yeah, there's no way you could know that." Shadow scoffed.

"No Shadow, I can here a motorcycle too." Rouge stated.

Shadow sighed, and leaned against the wall.

"It could anybody on a motorcycle riding next to train tracks." He explained, "That biker kid could be a part of some gang…"

"That is made of all red hedgehogs with purple girlfriends?" Ringo asked, pointing out the window.

Shadow and Rouge both looked outside, gasping at the sight. Just outside the window, riding alongside the train, was Rave standing on the handlebars of his motorcycle. Op had moved ahead in her seat, and was taking of steering, while Ex waved her free paw toward the group.

"What the…" Drake started.

"Hi there suckers!" Rave shouted over the combined noise of two engines, "I'm gonna ask nicely, once: Hand over the emerald!"

"Emerald? What are you talking about?" Silvia shouted.

"I think I can guess…" Rouge moaned, looking to Shadow, "You took it with us from the apartment, didn't you?"

"I didn't want this punk getting the drop on me again." Shadow explained in a clam voice, "I thought if I could use Chaos Control, I wouldn't have any problems."

"Hey, if I don't get an answer then I'm just coming in there!" Rave threatened, jumping from the handlebars and vanishing from sight.

The five inside the car pressed against the windows, but only saw Op and Ex wave at them and smile.

"Where'd he go?" Ringo asked, turning to Shadow.

A loud clank sounded from above, and part of the roof began to dent in.

"Everyone duck!" Shadow ordered, dropping to the floor.

The others followed suit just as Rave's sword pierced through the top of the train and sliced through the air where they had been standing. Silvia gasped, but Rouge motioned for her to be silent.

"If you shout, he'll know where we are…" She warned, "Spread out, everyone, and stay low."

Shadow remained in place as the other four carefully crawled under the seats of the train. Rave's sword periodically punched through, slicing at empty air, but it was obvious he couldn't tell where anyone was inside the train.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Ringo asked.

"_We _don't do anything." Shadow whispered, "I'll handle this…"

Shadow carefully reached into a small belt pouch strapped to his waist, and pulled out a glittering, green crystal.

"He wants an emerald, he'll need to beat me first." Shadow smiled, "Chaos Control!"

The emerald flashed with green light, and Shadow disappeared! Ringo, Silvia, and Drake all stared in slack-jawed shock, while Rouge smiled.

"Go get him." She whispered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On the roof of the train, Rave was having no luck as he plunged his sword through random spots while dodging a few low-hanging branches from the trees that dotted the area around the tracks.

"Ravey? Are you okay?" Op shouted up.

Rave lowered his sword and frowned.

"No…I can't hit anyone!" Rave shouted back, "Where's that emerald?"

"Right behind you." Came a hushed voice.

"Huh?" Rave spun around, just in time to be clobbered in the face with a well-placed punch from Shadow.

He stumbled back, clutching his jaw and barely avoiding falling of the edge of the car. He smiled as he recovered his balance, readying his sword.

"You call that a punch?" He asked with a grin.

"Yeah, but your skull seems a bit thicker than I thought." Shadow frowned, "Guess we need to do this the hard way."

"You think this is the hard way?" Rave grinned, "Beating you up will be easier than escaping that concert last night!"

"I heard that!" Ringo's muffled voice shouted from inside the train.

"I'll kick your tail later kid!" Rave shouted back, "Now shut up, the adults are talking."

Rave lifted his sword, and charged right at Shadow. As he swung, Shadow deftly leapt over the blade and flipped over his opponent. Landing behind Rave, he slammed his elbow against the sword-wielder's head, causing him to stumble forward a few steps, and almost sending from the train again!

"And you're supposed to be the ultimate life form?" Rave challenged as he spun around and brought his sword down in a vertical slice.

Shadow neatly sidestepped the blow, and delivered a backhand to Rave's face. The injured hedgehog dropped his sword, the blade now stuck in the train by its edge, and stumbled sideways clutching his face.

"And you said you were 'Terror of the Highways?'" Shadow grinned as Rave pulled his hand back.

Rave frowned, noticing a bit of blood on his hand.

"You made me bleed my own blood." He growled, "I gotta say I'm impressed, no ones done that in a while…"

Jumping forward, he threw a fist toward Shadow who sighed and ducked underneath the blow. He swept his legs out, knocking Rave's feet out from under him, sending the bandit sprawling to the roof of the train.

Shadow stepped back, and pointed at Rave with his index and middle fingers, clutching the emerald tightly in his left hand. Rave slowly stood up, glancing about for a chance at escape.

"There's no where left to run! Time to end this…" Shadow smiled, "Chaos Spe…"

Rave suddenly threw himself flat onto the roof again, causing Shadow to break his concentration. Looking over his left shoulder, Shadow gasped as he spotted an oncoming tunnel…

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh boy, time to turn Exey!" Op warned, suddenly pulling the bike back, and putting it directly behind the train.

Ringo's ears pricked up as the cabin went dark, indicating they had entered a tunnel.

"Oh no!" Ringo shouted, as a loud thud sounded overhead.

"What was…?" Rouge started.

"I can hear him moaning up there…" Ringo fretted, "Shadow is hurt!"

"Shadow…" Rouge gasped.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a short tunnel, but the entrance arch had been enough to render Shadow incapacitated. As the car exited, Rave stood back up, smiling as he scooped up the emerald that Shadow had dropped. He then removed his sword from the train roof, and tipped it toward Shadow.

"Thanks." He smiled, turning around and returning his weapon to the sheath on his back.

He took off running for the back car, and made it in under a minute. Shadow recovered his wits just in time to see Rave jump off. Realizing the emerald was gone, Shadow covered the same distance in less than fifteen seconds, just in time to see Rave pilot his motorcycle back into the tunnel and vanish into the darkness inside.

"No…" Shadow groaned, falling to one knee, "Lucky little punk…"

---

_**Whoa! Did Shadow just lose?**_

_**That Rave guy got really lucky if he beat Shadow.**_

_**Uh-oh, calm down Shadow! Maybe you can get him back next time. The next chapter is called;**_

**Surprise Attack**

_**Hey, wait a minute… Is that another Slayer?!**_


	5. Surprise Attack

Disclaimer: We do not own Sonic the Hedgehog or any of his friends or enemies, but we do own our own, original characters.

A/N: Sorry for the late update, we've been busy with school.

_Hi there, this is Knuckles._

_For a long time, my tribe guarded an ancient treasure called the Master Emerald._

_If it ever fell into the wrong hands, a great tragedy would occur_

_It is now my duty to protect this gem._

_But, I'm not sure if I can do that this time…_

**Chapter 5**

**Surprise Attack**

Eggman paced back and forth in his airship's control room. He had sent Op and Rave to get the chaos emerald ten minutes ago and they hadn't come back yet.

"_Where are those two biker brats?" _he thought, _"They couldn't have gone too far… could they?"_

As if to answer his question, Rave's motorcycle could be seen speeding toward the airship from the window. Seeing this, the mad doctor pressed a few buttons on a control panel and the hangar opened. A ramp lowered so the bike could drive up.

--------------

In the Mystic Ruins train station, the afternoon express line was just pulling in unaware that one of its passengers lay injured on its roof. As it came to a stop and opened its doors, Ringo, Sylvia, Rouge, and Drake all filed out and looked around nervously.

"Where's Shadow?" Rouge asked, holding a hand near her mouth.

As if in answer to her question, the black hedgehog rolled down from the roof of the train and landed on the platform. He groaned slightly as he tried to get to his feet.

"Shadow!" Rouge gasped, helping him up.

"Rouge…Since when do you have a twin sister?" Shadow asked, clutching his head.

Looking toward the Renegades, Shadow just moaned louder.

"Oh great, those fools multiplied too." He sighed.

"I'll chalk that up to the head injury." Ringo muttered under his breath.

"Sounds like he got hit pretty hard." Darke said, "That's some nasty double vision…"

"Shouldn't we get him to a hospital or something?" Silvia proposed.

"I don't need a hospital." Shadow said as he tried to move away from Rouge, "I need that punk here so I can kick his…"

Shadow stumbled, resulting in Rouge catching him again.

"I think you should lie down for a minute. Tails should be at his workshop, he must have a first aid kit." Rouge suggested.

"Great, let's see fox boy." Shadow agreed.

Rouge began carrying Shadow off, and looked over her shoulder to the Renegades.

"Aren't you guys coming?" Rouge asked.

"We're here to meet Sonic, remember?" Ringo reminded her.

"Maybe you didn't hear, but Sonic hangs out in the Mystic Ruins a lot to be close to his friend Tails." Rouge said, "The kid we're going to visit."

Hearing this, Ringo looked to his friends. Silvia just shrugged, hoping to avoid another argument, while Drake stretched his wings and nodded.

"Okay, lead the way." Ringo said as they set off.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door of the laboratory slid open without a sound, and Rave and Op walked in. Eggman stepped right in front of them with an expectant grin on his face.

"Did you get it?" He asked, "Did you find the Chaos Emerald?"

Rave just grinned and pulled the green stone from behind his back. Ex, who was seated on Op's shoulder, began to drool at the sight of it and jumped toward it with an open mouth. Eggman was a hair faster and snatched the gem away, leaving only Rave's hand for the young chao to teeth on.

"Yeouch!" Rave shouted, grabbing his hand, "Ex…Get…Off."

The chao opened her mouth, and Op scooped her up.

"Aww…She's just hungry. Aren't you wittle Exey?" Op said with a big grin.

"Chao chao!" Ex nodded.

"Well tell her that the Chaos Emeralds aren't snacks." Eggman said as he walked toward one of the pods lining the wall.

Rave followed his new employer to the pod, and leaned against the wall next it.

"So what's this one do?" He asked.

"Patience my rambunctious little friend." Eggman cautioned as a hiss sounded from the pod and it swung open.

"Use smaller words, Egghead." Rave grumbled.

"Don't worry, you'll see this one in action soon enough." Eggman declared as he slid the gem into his creation's chest.

Rave looked around the lab, and scratched behind his ear.

"Where are the red guy and yellow guy?" He asked, sounding as though he could care less.

"I sent them a little errand. They'll be joining us shortly." Eggman explained.

"Aww…They're having a party and they didn't invite me?" Rave asked, drumming his fingers against the hilt of his sword, "Damn…I know all these great party tricks."

"Now now, you can join the fun next time." Eggman assured him as a screen dropped down from the ceiling, "While Slayer Green is charging, how would you two like to observe the other slayers with me?"

"Cool. Got a big screen T.V?" Op smiled.

"Screw that, I want ringside seats." Rave said.

"This will be better. You won't get in the crossfire with this." Eggman explained.

The screen lit up, showing a dense jungle. The camera scanned to the right, showing Slayer Red, and then looked left.

"Where's the camera?" Rave asked.

"In Slayer Yellow of course." Eggman said.

On the screen, a large, purple cat carrying a fishing pole wandered by. A small frog was hopping up and down on his shoulder, croaking happily.

"Who the hell is that?" Rave asked.

"Hmm?" Eggman noticed the cat as he walked off the screen, "Oh, Big the cat. He's harmless; he never does any damage to my plans… at least, not without motivation. But if he doesn't have an emerald with him than I don't care."

The camera turned forward again, and began moving through the jungle.

"I guess Big won't be an issue this time around." Eggman smiled.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In a small workshop in the Mystic Ruins, three friends had gathered together once again.

In the garage connected to the main building, Tails was hard at work repairing his latest plane after his latest crash. His hand reached out from under the wing, groping about until it found a screwdriver, then disappeared back under the machine.

In the central building, which also served as the young fox's home, Sonic was in the living room relaxing on the couch watching the news with a bored expression. Amy Rose, her pink quills arranged perfectly in a vain attempt to catch her hero's attention, was in the kitchen in the next room placing removing something from the stove.

"Whew, I almost can't believe Tails repaired this after finding it in a scrap yard." Amy said as she removed a pair of pink oven mitts after placing a fresh pie onto the table, "That stove works just like new…"

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud buzz. She rubbed her chin as she headed toward the front door.

"I've got it!" She called out to Sonic as he got up from the couch, "And don't even think of touching that pie until it cools!"

Sonic snapped his fingers in frustration, and settled himself on the couch once again. Amy peeked through the small peephole set into the front door, and gasped. She swung the door open, revealing Shadow, still slumped over Rouge's shoulder, the Renegades standing behind them.

"Shadow!? What happened to you?" Amy asked as Rouge carried him in, "You look like you got hit by a train!"

"And you two look like…Oh…" Shadow moaned as he clutched his head again.

"Both?" Amy asked as she helped carry Shadow into the living room.

"Shadow?" Sonic gasped, "Woah, what happened?"

"How many times am I going to be asked that?" Shadow asked as Sonic got up, "It involved a train, a tunnel, and my head. Let's leave it at that."

"Here you go Shadow." Rouge said as she gently lowered her friend onto the couch, "Where's Tails?"

"In the workshop, hold on." Amy said, picking up a small walkie-talkie from the coffee table next to the couch.

In the garage, Tails was stretching to try and reach a socket wrench, while keeping one hand on an oil line on the underside of his plane.

"Almost…" He muttered as he wrapped his fingers around the tool.

"Tails!" Amy's voice shouted over the walkie-talkie next to the vulpine's toolbox.

With a shout of surprise, Tail's lost his grip on the oil line and promptly found his orange fur died black by the liquid. He hurridly capped off the flow with a coupled twist from the wrench he had grabbed, before grabbing the small radio whiled wiping the grease from his face.

"Something wrong Amy?" Tails asked as he looked around for something to mop up the oil.

"It's Shadow…He's here and he's hurt." Amy's voice explained.

"It's not all that bad." Shadow's voice commented in the background, "And ice pack would be nice though…"

"Shadow's here?" Tails asked, "Hang on a minute, I'll be right up. And the ice packs are in the freezer."

In the living room, Sonic vanished in a blur of blue quills and reappeared holding a small, blue, plastic case wrapped in a paper towel.

"Here you go." He said, handing it Shadow.

Shadow took it without a word and pressed it to the top of his head. From the doorway, a small cough could be heard.

"Excuse us." A voice said.

Amy and Sonic looked over to see Ringo standing in the doorway with a sheepish expression on his face.

"Sorry, don't mean to be rude." He said, looking to the blue hedgehog, "You're Sonic the Hedgehog, right?"

"The one and only." Sonic smiled, "You another autograph hunter or something?"

"No actually, though Drake here is." Ringo said, gesturing to the dragon as he held up a pen and paper, "But that can wait."

"Oh come on Ringo, how often do I get to meet Sonic?" Drake pouted.

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Just outside, Slayers Red and Yellow were still tramping through the jungle. They reached the edge, and observed from a distance the workshop where Shadow and his party currently were.

Slayer Yellow began to move forward, only for his companion to pull him back. Both watched as one side of the garage pulled up and Tails, still covered from head to foot in oil, walked out and headed around to the front door. He stopped for a moment, then quickly walked back and pulled the door to the garage back down before running back to the front door (almost slipping on his own feet) and heading inside.

Slayer Red nodded, and the two closed in on the garage…

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In the laboratory of Dr. Eggman, a loud beep could be heard coming from the side. Eggman grinned as he looked over.

"Ah, that would be Slayer Green." He said.

From the latest pod emerged a green robot. This one cat shaped like Slayer Red, only made of green metal. Its hands were oversized and it looked as though it were wearing boxing gloves. Its feet seemed to be adorned with oversized boots, and all four of the large appendages had small black lines running over them. Its green eyes turned to its master, and Eggman smiled.

"Welcome, Slayer Green, to the dawning of the Eggman Empire." The mad doctor grinned.

The robot snapped a quick salute, as Eggman pressed a button on the view screen. A large map immediately replaced the image of the workshop.

"Hey, I was watching that." Rave protested.

"And it was just getting good." Op whined.

"Just a moment you two." Eggman said, "Why don't you go make some popcorn while you wait?"

Ex seemed to like this idea, and pointed into her open mouth with a hungry expression. Op smiled as she carried the chao out of the room.

"Tell me what I miss." She requested.

Eggman tapped on the map, enlarging a section of it.

"Now then, for your first mission." Eggman told Slayer Green, "You'll be headed to Angel Island."

Rave couldn't help but snicker at this. After he realized the doctor was serious, he became confused.

"Something to add to the conversation, Mr. Rave?" Eggamn inquired, scornfully.

Rave got up from his seat and pointed to a spot marked as, "Angel Island" on the map. Giving the doctor a challenging look, Rave asked, mockingly, "Yeah, are we gonna visit Candy Land and the Mushroom Kingdom on the way?"

After another good laugh, Rave told Eggman, "That place is fairy tale, a legend, it's not real."

Eggman grinned wickedly and chuckled a bit. "Oh Rave," the doctor said, "you don't know how wrong you are…"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a quick introduction to the Renegades (Amy left to find her own autograph book, being a fan of their music) Tails gave the musicians a confused look.

"So, what brings you three to my workshop?" He asked.

"Actually, we wanted to meet with Sonic." Ringo explained.

"How come?" Sonic asked, "Aside from the obvious."

"Some stupid idea Ringo got…" Silvia started.

"You probably heard about our concert the other night. The one that got interrupted by a thief?" Ringo asked, ignoring Silvia as she huffed slightly.

"Yeah." Sonic nodded, "Shadow went after that guy."

"And he got away." Shadow grumbled, "Because some lucky accident…"

"Now settled down or you'll make that headache worse." Rouge warned.

"Exactly. Mr. Sonic, we wanted to hire you to catch that punk for us and make him sorry he ever disrespected our band." Ringo said with a determined expression.

Sonic and Tails both seemed stunned by this proposal. It was rare that anyone came to the Blue Blur for the sole purpose of hiring him for…Anything really. The silence was broken when Amy reentered the room with her autograph book and a fresh towel for Tails.

"Sorry…I left it…Upstairs." Amy said, catching her breath from what had been a frantic search, "Did I miss something?"

Tails took the towel and wiped the oil from his face and chest at last.

"Well, apparently the Renegades want Sonic to get that biker from the news." Tails summed up.

"Exactly." Ringo said with a smile.

Silvia shook her head, while Drake put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I tried to convince Ringo we'd just be wasting your time." Silvia said.

"Um…Yeah. I don't really just go and beat guys up." Sonic shrugged.

"They're working with Eggman." Shadow reminded him.

Sonic scratched his chin and smiled.

"Good point. I'm in." He said, "Anything Eggman wants from those two can't be good."

"Great!" Ringo cheered, casting a smug grin as Silvia even as she averted her gaze, "Now let's go and…"

Ringo trailed off, his ears twitching wildly.

"You hear that?" He asked.

A loud squeal of ripping metal, followed by a crash of something heavy followed this question.

"I heard _that._" Sonic said, covering his ears.

"That came from the garage where my plane is!" Tails gasped, "What's going on?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At about the same time, Knuckles prepared for a fight as the Egg Carrier approached his island.

Knuckles was a red echidna with long dreadlocks and spiky, white boxing gloves. He wore large red and yellow boots and had a white, horizontal crescent on his collar. Currently his face was twisted in an angry scowl at the approaching Egg Carrier.

The Egg Carrier was a massive flying fortress, about two or three city blocks long and one block wide. On top it was virtually covered by gun turrets and missile silos while on the bottom it had just as many guns, but no silos. The entire thing looked like a floating city on the horizon, only a lot more dangerous. Most of it was painted gray, black or red and it had Eggman's face printed on the side. Though attention was focused elsewhere on the floating fortress, most of the back was home to five massive jet engines.

The airship settled directly above the floating island and from it descended two figures. The first figure was the all-too-familiar Dr. Eggman in a one-man flying machine. The second was a green robot that Knuckles did not recognize.

"Hello Knuckles!" Greeted Eggman, "How's my emerald doing?"

Knuckles balled up his fists and sneered, "It's not your emerald, Eggman. If you want it, you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

"That can be arranged," The mad doctor responded, "Slayer Green! Get this knucklehead out of our way!"

At that command, the green robot pounded its oversized fists together. A few sparks flew from the black stripes on its hands, and the infernal machine took a kick-boxer's fighting stance.

"Bring it on, Rust Bucket!" Knuckles challenged, taking a similar position.

"Crush him!" Eggman ordered.

The robot didn't need another order. It dashed forward and threw a straight, right punch toward the echidna's face. Knuckles weaved to the left, the fist catching nothing but the air next to his face, and countered with a powerful uppercut from his right fist into the face of the automation. Its head kicked back as the robot stumbled backward three steps. It shook the blow off, and reassumed its stance.

"That all you got?" Knuckles challenged.

Not taking kindly to the verbal abuse, the bot ran in again and swung its left fist in an arc to try and catch its foe in the ribs. Knuckles was quick to move his right hand into the path of the blow, catching it with no problem. As he did, a burst of electricity sparked at the contact point between the two fists, and Knuckles let out a cry as his hand went numb from the blow.

Stumbling back a step, Knuckles shook his arm to try and restore the feeling to it. Slayer Green pounded its fists together again, arcs of lightning clashing between its fists.

"How do you like my latest creation's tazer fists?" Eggman taunted as his hover vehicle lifted him higher, "Each one pack enough electricity to take down a heavy-weight boxer with one punch!"

Slayer Green nodded, and dashed in for another blow. Knuckles ducked under the blow and pounded the torso of his enemy with a three-punch combo. Slayer Green was sent tumbling head over heels into a stone column that lined the battleground.

"Doesn't matter if he can't hit me." Knuckles pointed out, "He's not so tough…"

The robot stood up again, its fist sparking as it turned toward Knuckles once more.

"Oh come on…" Knuckles grumbled.

A loud clank sounded from behind him. Knuckles spun around to see his sacred treasure, the Master Emerald, with a large clamp attached to it. A thick cable to Eggman's flying pod connected said clamp, and the mad doctor was laughing as he hoisted the jewel away.

"Well, I got what I came for." He smiled.

"HEY! GIVE BACK MY…" Knucles protested.

The protest was cut short as Slayer Green's fist found Knuckles' unguarded back. He screamed as lightning coursed over his body for a second, and then fell face first to the ground, unconscious.

"Even better than I planned…" Eggman grinned, as Slayer Green looked at Knuckles with a hint of contempt in its otherwise soulless eyes.

"Now, now, we don't want him dead…yet." Eggman scolded, "Come along Slayer Green, we've much work to do."

Slayer Green nodded, and jumped onto the pod. The vehicle lifted higher into the air, docking inside the Egg Carrier as it began to fly away.

----------------------------------------------------------------

At the workshop, Sonic and the others had their own share of troubles. A quick run to the garage had revealed the source of the racket: Slayer Red and Slayer Yellow were standing next to the Tornado, Slayer Red with its blade extended and raised to slice.

"Hey, get away from there!" Tails shouted, concern for his invention overriding his self-preservation instinct.

Both robots turned to the fox that suddenly noticed the blade being carried by the red one.

"Oh…" Tails said, taking a step back.

"Anyone know what those things are?" Sonic asked.

"That looks like the robot Shadow described." Rouge stated, pointing to the red bot, "But he never mentioned a yellow one…"

"So these are Eggman's new toys." Sonic smiled, "All right, let's play! I'll take the big, ugly guy."

Slayer Yellow stomped forward and slammed its fists together with a resounding clang. It dashed toward the blue hero with all the agility one would expect from something with the relative mass of a tank.

In layman's terms, Sonic easily dodged to the side, leaving the yellow machine to plow into a tree…

It uprooted the tree, and continued the same way through the two behind it, before it managed to stop and turn around.

"Funny, that usually works." Sonic frowned.

Slayer Yellow bent over, and lifted up one of the fallen trees in a single hand.

"Uh oh." Sonic frowned, "Rouge, I'm gonna be busy, handle the sword one."

Sonic ran past the yellow robot, which turned around once more and began to chase its target. Rouge turned to Slayer Red, who had been silent during for the last few minutes as it observed its comrade's actions.

"Tails get back inside and don't come out until it's safe." Rouge ordered the fox that was watching as Sonic ran off, "Tell Shadow and the others to stay inside."

"Oh, right." Tails nodded as he headed toward the front door, "Be careful!"

Slayer Red eyed Rouge up and down, and pointed its blade at her.

"What, no witty banter?" Rouge asked.

The electric eyes on its face narrowed into tiny, red points. It almost flew across the ground and swept its blade in a wide arc toward the spy. Rouge flipped backward, the sword whistling through empty air, and she spread her wings. With a single flap, the bat was now hovering just over her opponent's head.

"This is almost _too_ easy." Rouge smiled as she came down with a powerful kick.

Slayer Red lifted its left arm, and Rouge's leg smashed through the armor and circuitry, stopping roughly halfway through as it struck a stronger, inner structure. Rouge pulled back quickly, just as the robot took another swing as her head, and watched as the left arm she had struck slumped uselessly to her opponent's side.

"Hmm…Guess you aren't as strong as Shadow thought." Rouge commented.

Rouge laughed a bit behind her hand, the laugh turning into a gasp as her opponent suddenly closed the distance between the two of them and stabbed toward her throat. Rouge ducked and prepared to sweep her foe's legs, but the robot spun first, its word angled downward in an attempt to catch the bat across the face! Changing her position, Rouge rolled backward onto her feet, only to need to dodge again as Slayer Red slashed horizontally again, bringing its arm across its body.

"_He's fast…really fast!"_ Rouge thought as the robot pressed its attacks, forcing her to dip, duck, and jump back further and further.

Rouge gulped as she felt the outer wall of the workshop against he tip of her wings. Slayer Red pulled its arm back for one more stab, Rouge gritting her teeth and prepared to fly again. Suddenly, a blue blur flashed behind Slayer Red, knocking it to the ground and breaking off about a quarter of its tail! Sonic now stood to Rouge's left, a grin on his face as he saw Rouge's confused one.

"Sonic? What happened to the yellow robot?" Rouge asked.

"I left his sorry can somewhere in the jungle. No way he could keep up with me." Sonic grinned as Slayer Red picked itself up and the removed chunk of its tail.

As it turned its gaze toward Sonic, Slayer Red found another distraction in the form of a large boulder suddenly smashing through the wall to Sonic's right. Incidentally, this wall was a part of the garage, and the boulder had happened to come through from the other side.

"What the…" Sonic and Rouge both gasped, looking into the hole.

The garage was even bigger mess than before, with parts of the Tornado now strewn about due to the rock that had smashed through. Slayer Yellow triumphantly held up the purple chaos emerald over its head.

"No way it can keep up, huh?" Rouge growled.

Sonic didn't make a snappy comeback; he instead dashed right at the yellow bot with full intention to avenge his friend's plane and claiming the emerald again. This ambition was squelched as Slayer Yellow delivered a powerful swat that sent Sonic screaming back toward Rouge and knocked both heroes to the ground.

"Ouch…" Rouge groaned as Sonic got off her.

"Sorry." Sonic said, "Stronger than I thought…"

Slayer Red and Slayer Yellow both dashed away from the workshop, and stopped at the edge of the jungle. As they did, Ringo suddenly ran up to Sonic's side, and turned to look at the hole.

"What happened here?" Ringo gasped.

"Looks like your hero is a zero!" A taunting voice shouted.

A cloud of dust burst from tree line, and Rave on a platform of floating metal stood grinning just over the heads of the slayers.

"You!" Ringo shouted.

"Hi there, extremely pissed off." Rave grinned, "Long time no see."

"Sonic, that's the guy that crashed the concert!" Ringo shouted, pointing an accusing finger as Yellow and Red jumped onto the platform.

"Wait, you mean he's the guy that's working for Eggman?" Sonic asked, "What do you want with the chaos emeralds?"

"Why do you care?" Rave growled, "Quit playing hero, there's nothing in it for ya. Now if you don't mind, I've got a delivery to make…"

The platform began to rise. Ringo gritted his teeth and dashed forward, snatching up a steel pole that had been knocked out of the reinforced-concrete walls. Hefting the heavy piece of metal overhead, Ringo launched himself into the air and aimed a vertical blow toward the punk hedgehog. Rave just smirked a bit and caught the makeshift weapon in his hands.

"You know, we should stop meeting like this." Rave said, twisting the pole, "And meet more like this!"

He slammed the center of the pole into the edge of the platform, sending a vibration through that caused the raccoon to lose his grip. Ringo fell to the ground with a thud, and glared at Rave as his platform continued upward. The Egg Carrier passed overhead, and the platform disappeared into one of the docking bays.

"Thank you Mystic Ruins! We hate you all, good night and go fu…!" Rave called out, the end of his message being lost in the roar of the engines as the Egg Carrier sped off.

----------------

_Oh no!_

_Eggman took the Master Emeradl!_

_Is all hope lost? Or can I get it back before it's too late?_

_I guess we'll find out next chapter:_

**Knuckleheads**

_Damn! How could I have failed…?_


	6. Knuckleheads

_Hey there, all you people in fanfic land. My name is Rogue._

_Last time, we had to fend off two of Eggman's robots._

_We couldn't hold them off, and they managed to wreck fox boy's plane and take our emerald._

_Even though things are pretty bad now, I have a feeling they're about to get worse._

_Wait, I can't get taken out here! There are still too many things I haven't stole… err… Borrowed without permission for an indefinite period of time._

Chapter 6

Knuckleheads

The door to the workshop's main building swung open, and into the living room trudged Sonic, Rouge, and Ringo. Silvia got up, looking to her friend with a worried expression as he gave a frustrated sigh.

"That didn't go how I thought it would…" Ringo grumbled.

The scene in the living room wasn't much better than the outside. While nothing inside was damaged, Tails was passed-out on the couch. Amy was tending to him with another ice pack, while he let out a low moan.

"What happened to him?" Rouge asked, gesturing to the fox.

"Don't know," Drake responded. "We heard a big crash from the garage, like something getting smashed, and he just fainted."

"He also stole my seat," Shadow grumbled, leaning against the corner with the discarded ice pack by his feet. "How did the fight go?"

"How'd you know it was a fight?" Sonic questioned.

"With all that noise, what else could it have been?" Shadow answered. "I take it the robot escaped."

"With the Chaos Emerald, and a new robot friend," Rouge sighed.

Shadow didn't seem to like this news as he looked to the bat.

"Another sword-bot like that Slayer Red thing?" He wondered.

"No, this one was huge," Sonic described. "And yellow. Plowed through half the jungle chasing me like it was mad or something."

"I'm just glad it didn't get in here," Amy shuddered.

"Probably wouldn't have fit in here," Sonic assured her. "But like I said, it got away."

"Along with that biker that I _thought_ Sonic was supposed to take care of," Ringo grumbled once again.

"Can't count on Blue-Boy for everything," Shadow smirked.

"Hey!" Sonic protested.

Before the hero could come up with a snappy response, Silvia crossed the rest of the distance between herself and Ringo and planted a solid smack across the shocked raccoon's face. He stepped back, clutching his cheek as he turned to his band mate.

"What was that for?!" He shouted.

"For being ungrateful to Sonic when he was trying to protect us from those bots!" Silvia yelled back.

"And they're off again…" Drake sighed as the other occupants of the room (Tails aside) observed the sudden argument.

"This happens a lot?" Amy asked.

"Almost everyday actually," Drake admitted. "They reconcile soon enough."

"Huh, and I 'Entertainment Tonight' made that part up…" Amy mused. "What about the rumor…"

"No, Silvia isn't planning a solo career," Drake interrupted, lazily sweeping his tail and stretching his wings as he sat on the floor. "But get comfy, this might take a while…"

As yet another staring match between the two began, Ringo's ear suddenly gave a small twitch. Silvia noticed it, and frowned as the ground began to tremble.

"What the…" She started to ask, the tremors growing worse.

"I'm having a bad weekend…" Shadow sighed as lowered his head.

The furniture began to rattle along the floor as everyone braced themselves against the walls and ground. Tails awoke amidst the shaking, and grabbed the armrest of the sofa with a startled gasp.

"Hey…what's going on!" The surprised fox called out as the shaking grew even worse.

"Not sure, hold on!" Sonic shouted back.

Ringo had both hands clamped over his ears with a pained look on his face as the ground shook and rattled uncontrollably for almost a minute before settling down. The quaking gave way to a few light vibrations, which faded to a dull roar off in the distance. Slowly, everyone got back to his or her feet looking around to check for damage.

"What was that all about?" Ringo asked, slowly uncovering his ears.

"Not sure, we should probably check it out," Sonic suggested. "Get the feeling I've heard that noise before…"

"But Sonic, what if that robot comes back?" Amy asked. "Who'll protect me?"

"I'm sure Tails can handle it," Sonic said, flashing his friend a thumbs up.

"Until he finds out his plane got smashed," Rouge thought out loud.

Upon hearing that, Tails fell back into a prone position on the couch, unmoving. Seeing this, Shadow cleared his throat.

"You know what? I'll keep Amy and Tails out of the hospital and stay here," the black hedgehog volunteered.

"That's surprisingly helpful of you," Rouge observed as Amy picked up the dropped ice pack.

"Listen, this doesn't mean I like any of you. I just don't want to deal with you moping because your girlfriend and your sidekick died," Shadow grumbled.

"Girlfriend?" Sonic asked, Amy looking like she was in Heaven.

"Sidekick!" Tails protested, suddenly sitting up.

He clutched his head again, becoming light-headed due to sitting up too fast. That combined with his previous shock sent the young fox onto his back again.

"Maybe you should take it easy," Drake suggested.

"If Sonic's going, then so am I," Ringo spoke up. "I want to make sure we get what we pay for."

"You're paying me?" Sonic asked.

Ringo pursed his lips together, suddenly realizing he hadn't mentioned that before. Silvia sighed as she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, anything you'd like. Maybe some free concert tickets for you and your friends?" she suggested.

Ignoring Shadow, who was shaking his head no as frantically as possible, Sonic smiled as he shook Silvia's hand.

"Sounds cool to me," he accepted.

"Guess I'll come along to make sure you two don't slow Sonic down to much," Rouge said, stepping toward the door. "Now let's get this show on the road. Unless the dragon wants to come too."

Drake looked over his shoulder to the pie that was still sitting on the kitchen table. His stomach grumbled a bit as he looked to Amy.

"Is that a cherry pie?" He asked.

"Yes," Amy nodded.

"Yeah, I'll stay here," Drake said to Rouge.

"Okay then, let's go!" Sonic cheered.

"But what about the pie I made for you Sonic?" Amy asked.

"Save me a slice!" Sonic shouted as he headed out the door with Rouge, Ringo, and Silvia in tow.

Amy sighed as she walked back to the kitchen and carefully cut a slice from the fresh treat. As she set it on the counter she noticed Drake looking at the rest of the confection. Sighing, she cut another slice out and set it on a plate.

"Want some?" She offered.

In answer, the dragon scooped the remaining pie in the tin along with a fork from the table and began to scarf down what was left.

"Hey!" Amy shouted as she watched the reptile dash back into the living room with his 'snack.'

Grumbling under breath, Amy picked up the two slices that she had cut out and set them in the refrigerator. As she did, a thought came to her.

"_Huh, now that I think of Drake looks a bit…chunkier than he does on T.V."_ She realized.

In the living room, Shadow was noticing the same thing.

"_Guess being a lousy drummer doesn't burn a lot of calories,"_ He mused.

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Back on the Egg Carrier, Rave was relating the tale of his latest victory to a captivated Op and Ex.

"So then, I slammed the bar he'd picked up against the floor and sent that idiot ten-feet right to the ground!" He laughed.

"Wow, that's almost as good as the story where you beat up all those truckers!" Op gushed admirably.

"Chao chao!" Ex cheered from Op's shoulder.

"Yes, yes, we're very proud of Rave," Eggman said sarcastically with a sigh as the two bikers walked into the lab.

Slayer Yellow stood in the corner, silent but attentive as it watched its creator. Eggman was tending to Slayer Red, which was still clutching its removed section of tail in its undamaged right hand. Its left arm still lay useless at its side as Eggman went over his creation with a small magnifying lens.

"Well, the good news is that the damage done to Slayer Red is nothing that I can't repair within an hour," Eggman smiled.

"Good news usually comes with bad news," Rave noted. "Spill it, doc."

"Okay, the bad news is that he'll need to wait whilst I boot up the next model," Eggman grinned as he held out one hand.

Slayer Yellow stepped forward and held out the purple emerald for Eggman to claim. The mad genius headed to another pod, this one opening to reveal another cat-like robot crafted from purple metal.

"Neat, so what does the purple one do?" Op asked.

"Something very special that will make it the perfect weapon for crushing those fools once and for all," Eggman assured his audience.

As he reached down to insert the emerald into Slayer Purple's waiting chest cavity, he happened to notice a blur of purple and black streaming toward his hand…

With reflexes nobody knew the doctor had, he brought his hand up and out of the path of the hungry Ex. In her attempt to claim the gem as a tasty snack, the Chao instead barreled into Slayer Purple's open chest and chomped down hard. Sparks and wires flew everywhere, causing the poor creature to shriek and jump out like a rocket back into Op's arms.

"Exey! Are you okay, baby?" Op fretted.

Rave was laughing hysterically while Eggman stared in horror into the chest of his robot.

"That little hooligan completely trashed the power core!" Eggman roared.

"The power core just trashed Exey's digestion!" Op protested.

"Don't I wish!?" Eggman shouted back. "Do you have any clue how delicate something that relies on the Chaos Emeralds is?"

"Do you know how delicate Ex's tummy is?" Op shouted.

"Delicate? She ate one of the tires of my bike once," Rave reminded Op with a puzzled look.

"It was high in fiber, and she thought it was black licorice," Op explained as Ex licked her lips.

Eggman was fuming, tossing the purple emerald across the room toward the door. Slayer Green walked through the portal just in time to catch the airborne jewel with a curious look.

"This will take at least three days…" Eggman hissed, Slayer Red tapping him on the back. "What?"

In response, the red machine looked to its arm, and then to Eggman. He sighed and rubbed his forehead with a groan.

"You know, it might just be easier to upgrade you first, then repair Slayer Purple," Eggman reasoned. "Yes, that's what I'll do. In the meantime, the rest of you stay alert for any signs of the other emeralds…And get that Chao something to eat that isn't one of my robots!"

"No problem!" Op grinned.

"And it can't be one of my tires," Rave added.

"Hmm…Might need to get creative here." Op stated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the jungles that surrounded Mystic Ruins, Sonic and his little search party were making slow progress. Despite the urgency that Sonic felt toward investigating the crash, one major factor had forced the speed demon to walk rather than run.

This factor being Silvia and Ringo, who seemed more interested in continuing their previous argument than making progress. Rouge let out a frustrated sigh at she and Sonic walked a few feet ahead of the music stars.

"We'll never find out what that crash was about at this rate," she sighed, nudging Sonic under his ribs. "Maybe we out to…Pick up the pace a little? Emphasis on 'pick up."

Sonic smiled at this suggestion.

"Alright, I read ya," he nodded.

Without another word, Sonic suddenly blurred in midair, reappearing next to Silvia and taking her by the arm.

"What the..!" Silvia began.

"Just hold on," Sonic instructed.

With that, Sonic took off in a streak of blue and silver, Silvia barely having time to scream in surprise as she was pulled along. Ringo stood stock still at the sight of this, and opened his mouth to protest.

"Oh relax, she'll be fine," Rouge assured the raccoon as she placed a hand on each of his shoulders. "Are you afraid of heights?"

"No, but why do you…?" Ringo began.

He cut off in a shout of surprise as the bat tightened her grip and, with a push of her powerful wings, took to the sky with him still in her grasp. She took off just high enough so her passenger's feet scraped over the canopy.

"Relax, I've done this dozens of times with heavier guys than you," Rouge assured him as she soared off in the same direction Sonic had gone. "Just hold on and we'll catch up to Sonic in no time!"

---------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the workshop, Drake had finished off the pie and was leaning back against the wall with a satisfied smile. Amy seemed quite aggravated by the gluttonous reptile.

"I was saving most of that for Sonic!" She yelled.

"Trust me, he would have loved it," Drake said, looking a bit sheepish. "Besides, I was starving. All I had was a bagel this morning…"

"If we've had enough of 'Excuse Theatre', I'd like to discuss something that's actually important," Shadow chimed in.

Amy stepped back, grumbling under her breath about the situation. Tails, who had woken up when Amy started shouting, sat up weakly and clutched his head.

"What was that Shadow?" He asked, still looking a bit dizzy.

"I said, we should be talking about the fact that another robot has appeared," Shadow explained. "I only fought one last night, the red one. Now Sonic mentions some yellow freak. Tails, do you think Eggman might be mass-producing these machines?"

Tails thought for a minute, shaking his head as he tried to clear it.

"Well…I'm not too sure actually," He admitted. "It's clear he made more than one, but each one could be a custom model like the 'E-series' robots. But these things must be much more advanced if neither you nor Sonic could stop them easily…"

"So Eggman is working on another super robot?" Amy asked.

"Not again…" Shadow sighed. "Of course, these ones do seem a bit different."

"How so exactly?" Drake asked, the others looking to him. "Sorry, I've just never seen any Eggman robots before."

"I saw the yellow one before. Normally they don't look so…alive," Tails said. "They usually move and act like machines. But these ones were almost like living creatures the way they could move around. Plus, Shadow, didn't you say that one of them managed to keep up with you?"

"I was going backwards at the time, and it was fight rather than a race but yeah," Shadow nodded. "It was pretty quick, and it was definitely lighter on its feet than most. Almost reminded me of the android copies of me…"

"That's scary to think about, Eggman making robots that could match Sonic and Shadow for speed," Amy fretted, looking at her feet. "But we'll be okay, right? We've stopped Eggman before."

"Yeah, but those other times we knew what he had planned with the Chaos Emeralds," Shadow pointed out.

"Yeah. We don't have any clues what he plans for them this time," Tails agreed.

The room fell silent for a minute, and Drake cleared his throat.

"So, what do you think that crash was?" He asked.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Off on the far edge of the jungle, Sonic and Silvia came to a stop. Sonic gently released the fox-girl's arm, and she fell to the ground shuddering from the rapid transit.

"Oh my gosh…that was the most terrifying thirty seconds of my life…" She gasped out.

"Sorry about that, but we needed to get here fast," Sonic apologized, looking to the sky. "Oh good, looks like Rouge was able to keep up."

Rouge flew from over the trees, carefully setting Ringo on the ground where he stumbled a bit before finding his footing. The bat smirked as she landed and looked about, trying to locate the source of the earlier noise.

"Well, thanks for the lift…A little early warning would have nice though," He said, taking a few deep breaths.

Silvia managed to get up, swaying on her feet as her sense of balance returned. She looked around as well, and sighed.

"Well, looks like whatever made that racket is gone now…" She pointed out.

"Nope, it's right over there," Sonic declared, pointing toward a cluster of stone pillars.

The pillars sat in a circle, on a section of a nearby cliff that extended over the ocean far below. A narrow fissure ran between the group and the columns, as though someone had merely pulled two pieces of land closer together. The team walked to the edge of this line, Rouge being the first to speak.

"What is it?" She asked.

"You don't recognize it? It's Angel Island," Sonic answered, gesturing to the columns and a pedestal in the center of them. "I thought you'd been here before."

"Yeah, but then it was hovering above the Earth. What's it doing down here?" Rouge challenged, Ringo and Silvia giving one-another confused looks.

"I dunno, why don't we ask Knuckles?" Sonic suggested, jumping over the short crevice and gesturing to the others.

Rouge gave her wings a short flap, turned a flip in midair, and landed on one foot on the other side. Ringo and Silvia both backed up several feet before a taking a running leap to cross over the divide, each of them landing with roughly three feet to spare. As he landed, Ringo's ears began to twitch again.

"Hey, I here something groaning behind that pedestal thing," Ringo warned.

"Okay, what is with that hearing of yours? I'm a bat and I can't hear that well," Rouge sighed.

"Oh, well I've trained myself in music for a while by listening to all sort of songs since I was kid," Ringo explained. "I sort of gained a talent for hearing small changes in the sounds. I kept practicing with it and found that listening to music so much had actually improved my hearing."

"And folks say Rock and Roll can make you go deaf," Rouge thought aloud as she looked to Silvia. "I'm guessing it's tough to put up with him during practice."

"Hey, if he can't hear a mistake then neither can our fans," Silvia responded. "Should we see who's groaning?"

"I hope it's not who I think it is," Sonic said as he headed for the pedestal.

The foursome ran around the structure, arriving on the other side to a sight that brought Sonic and Rouge both to a halt. Knuckles was picking himself up off the ground, one hand on his back as he looked up to his friends.

"Knuckles! What happened?" Sonic called out, running over and helping the echidna up.

"Eggman has a new toy…" The guardian growled through his clenched teeth. "And it took my emerald…"

"New toy huh? Did it by any chance look something like a cat?" Rouge asked.

"At first, yeah. When I'm done with it it's gonna look like a punching bag!" Knuckles roared before falling back to his knees.

"Woah, calm down Knuckles," Sonic warned.

"Calm down? Without the Master Emerald, Angel Island will sink into the sea," Knuckles growled. "I need to get it back."

"And you can do that with a busted back?" Rouge challenged.

"It's not busted, it's numb," Knuckles answered. "That thing had lightning in its hands or something. One punch and I was out…"

"Woah, heavy stuff," Sonic muttered. "Let's get you back Tails' place, he'll help patch you up."

Sonic brought Knuckles to his feet again, supporting him with one shoulder.

"Up for a little sprint?" Sonic warned.

"But I need to get the emerald…" Knuckles began.

Before the rebuttal could finish, Sonic and Knuckles were already zooming back toward the jungle as a joint blur of red and blue. Silvia and Ringo both looked at Rouge with confused expressions once again.

"Okay, I couldn't follow any of that," Ringo stated.

"I'll explain on the way, let's go back," Rouge offered. "I think I can carry you both if one of you is willing to hold the other's legs."

"How do you figure that?" Silvia asked.

"It's a long story involving Shadow, a robot, and a huge fashion mistake on my part," Rouge sighed. "Now let's go."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It only took Sonic and Knuckles two minutes to reach the workshop. Amy tended to the injured guardian for roughly five minutes after their arrival until Rouge showed up with Ringo and Silvia in tow. After a few hasty introductions between the Renegades and Knuckles, the now larger group adjourned to the living room once more.

One inside, Knuckles began relating his tale of his battle from earlier, the Renegades on the edge of their seats as they listened. Tails and Shadow both seemed especially interested as Knuckles mentioned his foe in the fight.

"So there's a green robot too?" Tails wondered once the echidna had finished.

"Wait, do you know something about this?" Knuckles questioned.

"Green, red, yellow…it's like Eggman is trying to cover every color of the rainbow," Shadow grumbled.

A thoughtful look suddenly crossed both his face and Tails' simultaneously.

"Or the Chaos Emeralds!" They both realized together.

"Okay, time out," Ringo interjected, holding up one hand. "I don't know about Silvia and Drake here, but I'm almost completely lost. What are you two talking about?"

Rouge cleared her throat as she looked to Shadow. He nodded, and she looked over the musicians.

"Okay, it would be rude not to explain anything I guess, so here's Chaos Emerald theory 101," Rouge offered. "Basically, in this world there are seven magical jewels called the Chaos Emeralds. Each one can make a limitless supply of mystical power, and if you bring all seven together you can cause a miracle or a disaster, depending on what you want."

"Eggman has tried using the emeralds before," Shadow went on. "Usually, he grabs all seven and uses them in some huge machine designed to hold their power, or to fuel some ancient device that could hold the world ransom. But the one thing that just struck me about these robots he sent after us is the colors."

"Each emerald is a different color," Tails added. "Normally that doesn't mean anything other than a way to tell them apart."

"Yeah…Red, yellow, green, blue, silver, purple, and cyan." Amy listed.

"Right, but Shadow fought a red one, and just now a yellow attacked my workshop," Tails continued.

"And I fought a green one," Knuckles caught on. "Each of them matched one of the colors of the emeralds so far."

"Wait, I think I get it," Silvia nodded. "So, you guys think that each emerald is somehow connected to each robot?"

"Oh great, they come in different flavors," Shadow grumbled.

Rouge was muttering something to herself and she looked over to her black-furred friend once again.

"Shadow, you lost the green emerald on the trip over here," She reminded him. "Then, a green robot attacked Knuckles."

Shadow's eyes went wide.

"And the punks last night had an emerald with them, that's why the red robot stopped them!" He exclaimed.

"How much you want to bet it was the yellow emerald they had?" Rouge challenged.

"That explains the yellow robot. And I'll bet Eggman started this all with the red emerald," Sonic chimed in.

"I don't want to know how he got his hands on that without us finding out," Knuckles muttered.

"So wait, didn't those bots just take an emerald from the workshop?" Ringo asked.

"Yeah, the purple one that I was using as a power source for my plane," Tails answered.

"Doesn't that mean there could be four of these things now?" Drake worried.

"If anybody sees a purple cat, run," Shadow suggested.

"But wait, if these things are connected to the Chaos Emeralds, then why was the green one able to fight Knuckles?" Rouge asked. "Knuckles, you told me when we first met that the Master Emerald cancels out the Chaos Emeralds."

"The Master Emerald's power needs to be invoked before it will do anything to the Chaos Emeralds," Knuckles explained. "Now that Eggman has the Master Emerald, we can forget that option."

"So we take these things out one at a time, the old fashioned way," Shadow suggested.

"I'm cool with that," Sonic grinned. "Sounds like fun!"

Tails cleared his throat as he got up off the couch.

"I like the idea of smashing Eggman's robots as much as the next guy, but maybe we should make sure that no more of these things show up," he proposed. "Eggman already has four emeralds, so there are only three left."

"If we find them, we don't need to worry about any more of these robots," Shadow nodded.

Ringo was listening intently to this part of the planning, a smile slowly crossing his face. Silvia noticed this, and immediately began shaking a finger at her band-mate.

"Ringo, no," she scolded. "One word, two letters: NO!"

Ringo just gave Silvia a dismissive shrug as he got to his feet and stepped forward. Silvia placed her face in her hands and began muttering to herself while Drake put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

"Excuse me, but I have an idea that might help," Ringo declared. "What if Drake, Silvia, and I helped you guys get the emeralds?"

All eyes were on Ringo now, a silence filling the room.

Shadow cleared his throat as he came up with a response, "Okay…Not that we don't appreciate the offer but we can probably find better help then some second-rate rock stars."

Ringo clenched one fist, but took a deep breath before answering, "Look, I get that you aren't a fan, but consider this part of our payment to you and Sonic for helping deal with Rave. Besides, we're pretty well known, we can get into just as many places as you or Sonic and help you cover more ground in the search."

"Did you ever consider what might happen if one of those robots happens to find you with an emerald?" Rouge asked, looking at Ringo like he was crazy.

Silvia sighed, standing up and fielding the question, "Ringo here…never like the idea of us being saddled with a security team. He and I have taken a few self defense courses and we learned our way around the city so we could hide from anyone that might come after us."

"What about the fat lizard?" Shadow asked.

"Hey, I'm a dragon. DRA-GON," Drake angrily insisted. "I don't do that tongue thing, and I can breathe fire."

"You can breathe fire?" Shadow queried.

"Yep," Drake said with a proud tone.

"You can breathe fire and you didn't go out to fight the robots?" Shadow asked, now growling.

"Well, I'm more of a drummer than a fighter…" Drake muttered, looking to Silvia and Ringo for support on his claim.

Shadow just sighed, turning his attention to Tails and Sonic. The two of them seemed to be discussing the matter between them now.

Sonic looked up, saying, "Well, we'll need any help we can get. Sure you guys can handle yourselves?"

"This seems like suicide to me…" Silvia stated.

"Come on Silvia, we've dreamed of being superstars but now we could be super_heroes_!" Ringo whispered to her.

"But there's absolutely no point in trying to talk Ringo out this, obviously," Silvia admitted, giving the raccoon a glare.

"Like I said, we'll be fine," Ringo assured them. "If fighting the robots doesn't work for us, then we'll run for it. You'd be surprised how much ground we can cover when properly motivated."

"_They could get killed doing this…"_ Shadow said to himself.

"If the others like the idea, then I'm all for it," Shadow decided. "Just don't expect us to break away from our own jobs to help you."

"Okay, guess it's decided," Tails nodded. "We'll split into three teams and search out the remaining emeralds. When you find one, take the first chance you can to get back here. I say we all meet back here in…twenty-four hours, emerald or no."

"And we can plan from there," Rouge nodded. "You still have that emerald radar you made?"

"You bet, plus a few spare communicators," Tails answered. "We'll figure out the general area the last three emeralds are in, and I'll call you guys to help you home in on them."

"Sounds like a plan, let's go!" Sonic cheered.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Back aboard the Egg Carrier, Slayer Red was lowering itself from the repair bench in Eggman's laboratory. Rave was in the corner, watching as the doctor removed a lab apron that was now splattered with lubrication fluids.

"He doesn't look any different. I thought you were giving him an upgrade," Rave noticed.

"Oh I did," Eggman smiled. "Slayer Red, show him what you can do…"

In a blur of motion, the red bot snapped into place right in front of Rave, a blade extending from each arm and crossing in front of Rave's throat. He gulped nervously as the robot's tail came up, pointing a blade from its tip right at his head.

"Not bad," Rave admitted as the machine withdrew its weapons.

"Just imagine what it will do an enemy," Eggman declared.

"Imagine what it can do to fruits and ice, we're having smoothes!" Rave suggested. "Set that guy on puree and let him loose in the kitchen."

Just then, Op popped into the room holding Ex and proclaimed, "Exy-wexy loves smoothies!"

Slayer Red tilted its head in a confused manner, Eggman just sighing and rubbing his temples.

"_Kids today,"_ Eggman mentally lamented.

-----------------------------

_Like things weren't bad enough as they were, now Eggman is giving these Slayers upgrades?!_

_If we want to fight back, it looks like we'll need some emeralds of our own._

_I don't know what the doctor is planning, but maybe we'll find out next time in a chapter called;_

**The Rich and Famous**

_See you later. Rouge, out._


	7. The Rich And Famous

_My name is Ringo. I'm lead guitarist/singer for the rock band 'Renegade' and now, I'm a part-time hero it seems._

_The reason is simple, I'm hoping Sonic will be willing to take down some punk biker for me, and in return my band I will help him deal with Eggman._

_Silvia keeps insisting we shouldn't have gotten involved…_

_But hey, Sonic and the others wouldn't have let us help if this were really dangerous…_

_Right?_

Chapter 7

The Rich and Famous

Up in the bridge of the Egg Carrier, the forces of evil had gathered to discuss the next part of their devious plan. That, and enjoy some delicious smoothies, courtesy of Slayer Red. The crimson robot stood near the back of the room, cleaning bits of fruit off its blades as its fellow automations entered.

Rave was slurping up his drink with gusto, and smacked his lips together as he put it down.

"What did I tell ya?" He challenged.

Eggman, who was sipping at his own drink as he typed commands into his computer, sighed as he lowered the glass.

"Well, this is the best smoothie I've ever had in my life," he admitted.

Slayer Red crossed its arms and retracted its blades, giving Slayers Green and Yellow a smug look before Eggman stood up. The three robots snapped to attention immediately as the computer screen that took up the majority of the far wall displayed the image of a world map.

"Okay everybody, listen up!" Eggman commanded. "Things are going fairly well so far, but we can't get sloppy. There are three Chaos Emeralds left, and we need to find them before Sonic and his obnoxious friends do."

"Okay, let's get those emeralds!" Op cheered.

"Chao Chao!" Ex replied, before returning to her own smoothie and taking a large gulp.

Eggman cleared his throat, while the image behind him lit up with three small dots.

"Now then, we're in luck," he explained. "It seems the last three emeralds landed not too far from one another. Our enemies will still need to split up to find them, weakening their forces."

"Won't we need to split up too?" Op interrupted.

The three slayers stared at Op, who gave a sheepish grin.

"Just asking," she said.

"You're correct, Op, but consider the fact that we'll be sending a deadly robot soldier to each emerald to recover it," Eggman pointed out.

"That leaves nothing for me to do!" Rave protested. "If Red goes, I can't even have a nice smoothie."

"Did I say you wouldn't get to go?" Eggman asked. "Mr. Rave, I expect you to be of great help in not only finding the emeralds, but holding off those annoying heroes while my robots recover them. Or vice-versa."

Rave unsheathed his sword, his features lighting up with an excited grin.

"Leave the fighting to me, your rust buckets can take the emeralds," he declared.

All three robots turned their gazes on Rave now, looking offended at being called rust buckets, but Eggman just laughed it off.

"Just the answer I wanted to hear! You can accompany Slayer Green on his mission," Eggman ordered.

"What do I get to do?" Op asked looking equally excited now.

Eggman gave her a cautionary gaze and slowly looked to the robots. All three were shaking their heads as he slowly rose one finger to them.

"Fine, you help…Slayer Yellow," Eggman decided, pointing at the yellow bot.

Slayer Yellow hung its head, dejected, while the other two looked relieved as Op snapped a quick salute to Eggman. Ex mimicked the action before finishing what was left of her drink in one massive slurp. The chao immediately fell over, clutching its head and howling in agony.

"Oh no! Exey has brain freeze!" Op fretted, cradling her chao with a motherly expression.

"Told her not to drink it so fast," Rave informed them.

"Yes yes, we're all concerned about Ex. If we could focus for a moment," Eggman went on as he gestured to one of the dots. "Slayer Green and Rave will be deployed here, to Station Square. I've detected one of the emeralds inside the Station Square Resort, and guess who has the honor of fetching it."

"You're sending me to a hotel?" Rave queried, sheathing his weapon. "That's no fun. Give me someone to punch!"

"You're highly capable of handling the police by the looks of things," Eggman pointed out.

"Then what do I need him for?" Rave challenged, pointing to Slayer Green.

"In case I'm wrong," was the doctor's answer.

Rave crossed his arms with a displeased growl as he took a seat and rested his legs on a table in front of him. Eggman referred back to the map with a satisfied smirk.

"Now, for the other two, Yellow and Op will explore the Aquatic Mines. I do hope you know how to swim," Eggman advised.

"I'm a great swimmer, and Ex looks so cute in water wings," Op proudly declared.

Ex seemed to have perked up quite a bit from her brain freeze, and let out a happy cry at the thought of swimming.

"We can even use that new tube I bought her!" Op gushed.

"Business before pleasure please," Eggman warned.

"That's what Ravey always says," Op grumbled, crossing her arms.

Rave almost fell out of his chair, and struggled to regain his composure and bad mood after hearing that comment.

"Moving on…Slayer Red will take care of the one hidden in the GUN military base on Prison Island," Eggman finished.

"You're sending one robot to face an army of GUN troops?" Rave asked.

"He's more than capable, unless you want to volunteer," Eggman stated.

"I do!" Rave shouted.

"Too bad!" Eggman barked back.

Bad mood thoroughly reawakened, Rave went back to grumbling angrily to himself.

"Okay, your first priority is to get those Chaos Emeralds. Anything in your way is an enemy and should be treated as such," Eggman went on. "In other words, destroy it. Once the emerald is secure, your mission is to bring it here as fast as possible. If Sonic or any of his friends get in your way…"

Eggman paused to chuckle a bit before continuing.

"Well, all the worse for them. Understood?" He finished.

"I like this plan," Rave smiled.

"I'm happy to be a part of it," Op agreed.

"Chao chao chao!" Ex chimed in.

All three Slayers nodded. Eggman pointed toward the door as it opened up.

"Alright then, let's begin!" He ordered. "After all, the world won't conquer itself!"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

At Station Square Resort, located at the heart of the city, a familiar trio was making their way into the lavish entrance hall. Ringo paused for a moment, looking from the desk for the incoming and outgoing guests to the entrance he, Silvia, and Drake had just used.

"Well, here we are…again," Ringo acknowledged.

Silvia detached a small walkie-talkie from the waistband of her shorts, and pressed down on the button.

"Tails? Sonic? Can anyone hear me?" She asked into the device.

A hiss of static was the initial response, before the voice of Tails came through.

"Loud and clear Silvia. You guys make it to the hotel yet?" The young fox asked.

"Yeah…" Silvia sighed, noticing Ringo was motioning for her to hand over the communicator. "Hang on, here's Ringo."

Ringo took the walkie-talkie and said, "Are you sure the emerald is here? This is the same hotel that we've been staying at for the last few days now and we never noticed anything like a Chaos Emerald here."

Another hiss of static sounded before Tails responded.

"According to the radar, the Emerald has to be either in, under, or over the hotel," Explained Tails. "That's all I can figure from my readings though…"

Tails was interrupted as a muffled voice called his name.

"Hold on a second Knuckles!" Tails called back. "Sorry guys, you're on your own from here. Just be careful alright?"

"Can do," Ringo nodded. "Renegades, out."

Silvia took back the radio, and let out a frustrated groan.

"It might be under the hotel? He said that, right?" She hissed at Ringo.

"Well…" Ringo began.

"Let's just remember this was all your idea," Silvia grumbled, cutting off her bandmate.

Drake just rolled his eyes, silently praying that his friends wouldn't begin another argument. As he did, a new voice called out from the elevators at the far side of the lobby.

"Silvia! Ringo! Drake! There you are!" The voice cried with a thick Brooklyn accent, filled with worry. "I've been looking for you three all morning."

Putting aside their disagreement for the moment, Silvia and Ringo turned to see a human wearing a black suit and green undershirt. The jacket was completely unbuttoned, and the top few buttons of the undershirt were undone to show off the man's graying chest hair. He wore frameless sunglasses, obscuring any view of his eyes, and his obviously dyed black hair was done up in a short ponytail that still had a few gray streaks.

"Perry," Ringo winced. "I was kind of hoping…"

"What, that I wouldn't notice you guys had snuck out?" The man guessed. "Come on, you know the old saying: Your manager is always looking out for you."

"_Even if you don't want him to,"_ Ringo thought, but avoided saying.

Perry wiped his brow with a handkerchief from his pocket before continuing, "I thought maybe you had gone back to the arena to practice or something, but no one there had seen you three, Then I here from the hotel management that you were asking about the next train to the Mystic Ruins. What, you guys went to some amusement park without me or something?"

"Actually, Ringo got an idea about getting even…" Silvia began.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great Silvia," Interrupted the manager. "How many times to I need to remind you three that we have a schedule to keep. After all, you three like stardom right?"

"Yes…" All three sighed together, having heard this spiel before.

"And you three want to be the biggest thing since sliced bread, right?" He went on.

"Yes…" Was the response again.

"Then you got to listen to me! How is it the three of you can go running off on a train ride and prepare for a rain date concert at the same time? The studio won't like it if you guys start slacking…" Perry started.

Ringo and Silvia's eyes met for an instant, the two of them obviously agreeing (for once) that they would have rather avoided this situation. Drake was allowing his attention to wonder again, something he seemed quite adept at, and as he looked toward the check-in desk something caught his eye.

Standing at the desk, chatting with the clerk, was a man in his mid-forties. He was dressed in a well-kept purple tuxedo with matching top hat, and freshly shined black shoes. A monocle was set in one eye, and only slightly more eye catching was the bushy, gray mustache under his nose. What had really caught the dragon's attention though was the cane that the man held. It was a solid black cane, with a golden spiral twisted up its length. The spiral culminated into a small cup at the top, in which sat a large, blue gem.

Given that Drake had seen the emerald Shadow had used, and Tails had given them a good description of what to look for, it was easy to recognize the crystal for what it truly was.

"Ringo," Drake whispered, trying to avoid interrupting Perry. "The emerald, over there!"

Ringo turned to his friend, then looked over to where Drake was pointing. He spotted the gentlemen and the emerald, just as the man walked away from the desk and headed toward the elevators.

"Are you paying attention?" Perry snapped, pulling Ringo's focus back to him.

"Uh…Yeah. Real sorry about ditching you Perry, but there's something that we need to take care of at the moment," Ringo explained.

"Practicing, right? Yeah, what am I thinking wasting your time lecturing you guys about wasting time," Perry realized. "You kids get moving, I'll be…"

As Perry spoke, he noticed two bikini-clad women leaving the outdoor pool area. His eyes went wide and his voice faltered as he lowered his sunglasses.

"…Getting a couple phone numbers. 'Scuse me," Perry stated, brushing past his clients.

"You know, I bet deep down Perry's kind of likable," Drake commented.

"After you get past all that grease, sure," Silvia shrugged.

"Yeah, Perry is a sleaze, but he's the sleaze that gave us our chance. Now come on, the Chaos Emerald just got on the elevators," Ringo chimed in, pointing to the lifts.

"Wait, that's why you weren't paying attention to Perry?" Silvia asked as she followed Drake and Ringo to the elevators.

"Any excuse to ignore Perry is a good excuse," Drake joked as Ringo looked up at the LED numbers over the elevator that the tuxedoed man had got on.

"Huh, he's on the top floor," Ringo observed. "That's the most expensive suite in the place, our record company only got us up to the floor below it."

"Sounds like this guy could buy our record company," Silvia noticed. "So we're going after him?"

"Yeah…but one of us should stay down here and keep a watch in case Eggman sends one of those robots," Ringo warned.

Drake and Silvia looked to each other, and as he turned his head Drake noticed the hotel restaurant advertising its all-you-can-eat lunch buffet. The dragon smiled and held up the team's second walkie-talkie saying, "I'll keep look out."

Noticing the object Drake was holding, Ringo looked to the walkie-talkie that Silvia had clipped back to her shorts, then pointed to the one Drake held asking, "Have you had that this whole time?"

"Yeah," Drake nodded, looking at it himself.

"Where were you carrying it?" Silvia asked, noticing Drake still wore nothing more than his sandals from earlier.

His attention now drawn to this fact, Drake looked to the walkie-talkie and then shrugged, "Hmm…I don't know. Maybe I'll remember after I eat."

As Drake headed toward the buffet, Silvia raised one hand to try and stop him. Ringo just a put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head as he pressed the elevator's call button.

"Don't bother, I don't think we want to know," He advised, the elevator bell ringing as the door opened.

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On the outskirts of Station Square, one of the floating platforms from the Egg Carrier descended. On board was Slayer Green, its body covered by a black hood and cape with a large Eggman symbol painted across the back of the cape. It sat on the back of Rave's motorcycle, the disgruntled red hedgehog looking like he'd rather have a lighter-weight passenger.

"You'd better not lean on the turns, metal head," Rave grumbled as he revved the engine.

With a squeal of rubber on metal, the bike thundered off the launch platform into the unsuspecting city. Eggman's voice sounded from the area Slayer Green's mouth would have been, sounding quite pleased.

"Now Rave, the emerald is somewhere in this city," Eggman instructed. "Your orders are simple: Find it and bring it back to me immediately if not sooner!"

"Do I still get to smash stuff?" Rave asked.

"Oh…Why not. Just don't draw too much attention to yourself," Eggman ordered.

"Haven't you heard? There's no such thing as bad publicity," Rave grinned as he gunned his vehicle down a sidewalk, sending pedestrians scurrying for safety.

"Very funny, now pay attention! Slayer Green should be able to home in on the emerald once you get close enough. Pay attention to it, it will point directly toward your target," Eggman went on.

With this message finished, Slayer Green extended one arm, pointing to the left. Rave made a quick turn around the next corner, a car's brakes screeching to avoid colliding with him, and the robot began pointing straight ahead. Rave looked toward the building it was indicating, a smile on his face as he saw Station Square Resort.

"Jackpot!" Rave shouted as he tore down the street.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many things could be said about the gentleman that Ringo and Silvia had followed to the top floor. His name was Reginald Richington. He spoke with a snobbish, British accent, he enjoyed the finest things in life, and apparently had never heard the phrase "tone it down."

One thing he was not was gullible.

Silvia had her face buried in one hand as Mr. Richington laughed at her and Ringo, after the raccoon had attempted to explain their situation in front of the entrance to his room and why they needed to take the gem from his cane.

"You actually said 'an evil maniac and his robots are after that jewel you have…'" Silvia grumbled.

Ringo responded through clenched teeth, "I didn't hear you come up with any good ideas. I figured honesty was the policy here."

Richington's laughter died enough for him to gasp out; "I can't believe…you'd expect me to hand over my latest treasure with such a ridiculous story!"

"But it's true!" Ringo insisted.

"Then what does this big, bad robot look like?" the rich man taunted. "Covered in spikes and claws and armor? Oh my, let me hide my wife and child!"

Richington's mock-terror made it all the clearer to Ringo that he had no intentions of giving up the Chaos Emerald. Before he could attempt another rebuttal, Silvia grabbed the frustrated raccoon by his tail and yanked him back toward the elevators.

"Come on, we'll deal with him later," Silvia grumbled as Ringo let out a yelp of pain before falling into stride behind her. "After all, it's not like the emerald is going anywhere if he has it."

"I guess…." Ringo muttered.

A hiss of static burst from Silvia's walkie-talkie, and Drake's frightened voice called over it accompanied by the sounds of a general catastrophe in the background.

"Silvia! Ringo! Are you there!?" The dragon yelled. "That biker is in the hotel, and he's brought one of those robots!"

"Oh, one of your little friends in on the joke, eh wot?" Richington asked as Silvia nearly dropped the small radio as she attempted to answer Drake's hails.

"Drake, where are you?" Silvia asked, trying to remain calm while Ringo focused on every sound he could hear from the nearby area.

"I'm just outside the restaurant in the lobby…" Drake started, "And…."

He was cut off by what sounded like smashing wood, followed by a discouraging bout of white noise. Silvia pressed down on the button on her communicator, her voice wavering as she whispered her friend's name, "Drake? Are you…"

Ringo's ears suddenly twitched, and he turned his gaze over the elevator.

"Oh no." He said simply, the bell ringing to indicate that the lift had reached their floor.

The door to the elevator opened up, revealing Rave's smirking figure seated on his motorcycle inside the very roomy compartment of the elevator car. He was leaning on the handlebars of his bike, and waved to Silvia and Ringo as he saw them.

"You know, I was being serious when I said we should stop meeting like this," He said.

From behind Rave stepped Slayer Green, hefting Drake over its shoulder. The robot looked from Silvia to Ringo and then to Mr. Richington before tossing Drake at Silvia and Ringo's feet. Drake let out a low moan as he struggled to get up, Silvia kneeling by his side.

"Dang thing packs a punch…" Drake stammered out as the fox girl helped him up.

"Now which one of you has my emerald?" Rave demanded.

Slayer Green nudged Rave with one hand, and then pointed directly at the blue crystal in Richington's cane.

"Okay, now this joke has gone too far," Richington grumbled. "Oh Julius!"

The doors to Richington's room opened up, and from them emerged a rather tall and muscular human dressed in a simple black suit. He lowered a pair of sunglasses to take in the scene before him, before shaking his head and wondering aloud, "Why did I take this job?"

"Julius, remove these cretins from my sight," Richington ordered.

"Yeah, yeah, you're the boss," The bodyguard grumbled as he reached forward and picked up Ringo by the scruff of his neck with one massive hand.

"Hey, put me down! We're not the ones that are dangerous here!" Ringo shouted, struggling to get his feet back on the ground.

"Then who is?" Julius wondered.

Rave's engine revved twice as he pointed his thumb toward himself and declared, "That would be me and Sparky."

Slayer Green glared at Rave with its glowing eyes before clashing its fists together and producing a shower of electric sparks.

"That don't look safe," Julius fretted. "How'd you get a motorcycle in here anyway? Is that even legal?"

"Ask me if I care," Rave grumbled. "It's been way too long since I smashed something."

"It's barely been five minutes, you just tore the entrance lobby apart!" Drake shouted, his strength returning.

Rave adopted a slightly serious looking expression and nodded, "My name is Rave, and I'm a smashoholic…But it's better than being a corpse!"

The engine revved again, and Rave shot forward, Richington scrambled into his room, and Julius released Ringo who rolled to the side just in time to avoid being in Rave's path. Julius grabbed the front of the handlebars of Rave's bike, his muscles bulging as he struggled to hold Rave back. Since Julius was thusly preoccupied, he didn't notice Slayer Green lunging toward his employer, who had neglected to shut the doors. Richington screamed and ducked to the side, scampering away from the electric fists of the deadly automation and winding up right next to Silvia and Drake.

"Give me that!" Silvia shouted, quickly yanking the blue emerald free from the head of Richington's cane.

Slayer Green immediately turned its focus onto Silvia, who turned toward a doorway labeled "Stairs" across from the entrance to the suite. Drake and Richington both watched as Silvia tore through the door and headed down the steps, Slayer Green a mere second behind her.

"Hey…" Richington attempted to protest. "That's mine! Julius!"

"A little busy boss!" Julius grunted as he continued to push Rave back.

"Let go, this thing's a Harley!" Rave commanded. "You're gonna hurt my baby, and then daddy'll have to get rough!"

Richington was about to bark another order when Ringo suddenly snatched the cane itself from his grasp and headed for the stairs as well.

"Sorry I'll leave this downstairs thanks!" Ringo shouted very quickly.

"Why I never!" Richington fumed.

Rave now noticed that Siliva, Ringo, Slayer Green, and most importantly the Chaos Emerald were now all missing from the hallway. Growling in the back of his throat, he released the handlebars of his bike, allowing Julius the chance to push him back a bit by leaning further forward. Rave pulled back both hands, and slammed Julius on top of his exposed head with a hammer blow, knocking the guard senseless and allowing Rave to wrench his precious handlebars free.

"So long, suckers!" Rave shouted as he piloted his bike around Julius and headed toward a large picture window at the end of the hall.

Rather than smashing through the window though, he spun the bike back toward the elevators and gunned the engine. He charged forward, pulling a sharp left and directing his bike into the stairwell after the rapidly fleeing emerald.

Drake looked back and forth from the fuming Richington to the still open stairway, and let out a sigh. He made a deep bow to Richington, the tips of his wings brushing the ground. "Sorry for all the trouble," He apologized before taking off down the stairs as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Silvia ran down the stairs, chaos emerald in hand, when she heard a metallic clang behind her. She looked up and saw Slayer Green just a few steps above her. The fox girl began to run even faster down the stairs, even jumping to skip half a flight at a time.

Green stopped and leapt off the stairs' railing. He landed directly in front of Silvia, pulling back his arm to deliver a fistful of electricity to her head.

Just before the machine could unleash its attack, Richington's cane came crashing down on its head! Ringo had followed the mechanical monster off the railing and used the expensive stick he had stolen from the wealthy man like some kind of fighting staff. Slayer Green was caught off guard by the attack and fell over onto its side.

"Ringo!?" Silvia called out in surprise, "Then where's..."

The raccoon grabbed her hand and started running down the stairs with the bass player in tow. "Drake should be fine," he told her as they ran.

Silvia worked her hand free and ran next to Ringo, saying, "I wasn't asking about Dake, I was going to ask about…"

Suddenly, the roar of an engine could be heard throughout the stairwell. Ringo glanced up for a moment, his ears picking up the repeated thuds of a large object barreling down a flight of steps. He pulled Silvia along as he started running again, Slayer Green getting back to its feet, its fists sparking as it began to chase down the musicians once again.

----------------------------------------------------------

In the lobby of the hotel, Perry (who was sporting a black eye and carrying his broken sunglasses) was looking at what appeared to be the aftermath of a miniature tornado. The chairs and tables had been turned over, most of them broken into pieces. The windows and the glass of the pictures that hung on the walls were almost all shattered to bits, most of the portraits lying on the floor. The carpet was covered with bike tracks, and several burnt spots that looked as though a small fire had sprang to life on them.

"What the hell happened in here?" Perry wondered aloud.

Nervously, the receptionist peaked out from behind his desk, teeth chattering uncontrollably.

"Is that psycho hedgehog and his robot pal gone?" Asked the employee.

"Psycho…?" Perry began to ask.

He was cut off when the door to the stairwell flew open, Ringo and Silvia dashing out of it. Silvia headed straight for the front door leading out to the streets, while Ringo ran to the desk and handed the cane he had borrowed to the receptionist.

"Tell Richington I said thanks!" Ringo shouted very quickly once again as he followed Silvia outside.

Perry had one second to realize that two of his stars had just run out the door when Slayer Green barreled through. It spun immediately toward the exit and took off, following the guitarists without so much as noticing the other two occupants of the room. Perry fell back against the wall, the situation beginning to become a bit too much for him.

Rave emerged from the stairs at just that moment, his engine screaming as he pulled his bike to a quick halt.

"You see a big green robot run through here?" He asked, glaring at Perry.

Numbly, the greasy manager pointed out the front door.

"Thanks gramps," Rave nodded as he revved his engine again.

As Rave shot toward the exit, Drake entered from the stairs as well. He stopped right next to where Perry sat, and looked to his manager, catching his breath as he did so.

"Uh…Hi Perry," Drake wheezed.

"What's going on here Drake?" Perry demanded.

Drake ignored his manager, looking up just as Rave smashed through the doors, blowing them off their hinges. Drake's eyes narrowed, he took a deep breath, his chest swelling and sparks leaping inside his mouth…

Rave heard a loud crackling behind him, and wisely swerved to the left before pulling to a stop again. He stared as a stream of fire splashed against the ground he had occupied just a moment before, sizzling against the pavement. Eyes wide, Rave looked back into the lobby to see Drake running out, the dragon's face occupied by a sneer.

"Deal with you later," Drake growled, spreading his wings.

With one flap, the dragon was in the air, heading down in the street in the same direction that he could see the slayer heading in.

"He can fly…And he can breathe fire," Rave realized. "That just ain't fair."

Rave's bike came to life once more as he began trailing Drake. Perry finally decided enough was enough, and reached for his cell phone. After punching in three numbers, he lifted it up.

"Hello, police?" He asked.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ringo and Silvia were already a few blocks from the hotel, Silvia still clutching the emerald to her chest as she glanced over her shoulder.

Slayer Green had not given up yet. Its legs and arms crackled like live wires as it slowly gained on its target.

"Real smart playing keep away with a deadly robot!" Silvia shouted at Ringo as she looked to her companion.

"I'm not the one that grabbed the emerald!" Ringo retorted.

Silvia pursed her lips together before admitting, "Maybe we should argue about this some other time."

"For once, we agree," Ringo nodded.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Drake, in the meantime, was flapping for all he was worth. Unfortunately he could see his friends were gradually losing their race against the mean machine that was chasing them.

"Urgh…" Drake grunted as he felt his right side begin to cramp up.

"_Maybe I shouldn't have scarfed down that extra plate of pasta back at the buffet,"_ he lamented to himself as he struggled to stay airborne.

Hearing an engine below him, Drake looked down to see Rave was closing in fast. Gritting his teeth, Drake managed to take another deep breath.

"_I'm not sure I can get the fire big enough,"_ Drake said to himself as he felt the sparks in the mouth. _"But I can't let this guy catch up to Ringo and Silvia, they've got enough trouble already."_

Rave looked up, just in time to see another blast of fire heading for him. He surged ahead, forcing the engine to its limits in attempt to get ahead of where the weaker fireball was about to hit. He nearly succeeded, but the smell of burnt rubber and a loud sizzle as the flames whooshed past told him all he needed to know.

Drake hadn't fully disabled the bike, but his attack had melted the rear tire. Rave glared up at the tiring reptile above him, one hand reaching back to finger the hilt of his sword.

"Oh that is it!" He shouted, slamming the brakes and releasing the handlebars as he pushed up with his legs.

The combination lead to Rave being launched into the air with the same velocity his vehicle had had but a moment before. He grabbed his foe around the waist as he drew level with him. The sudden shift in weight pulled Drake down, his sore wings giving out and resulting in both of them hurtling toward the ground.

The crash landing was slowed significantly by a convenient awning, which both Rave and Drake tore through. Drake landed first, the combination of his own exhaustion and the impact knocking the air from his lungs and any conscious thoughts from his head. Rave bounced off of Drake's back before landing on his own rear, wincing in pain as he landed on his short tail.

He looked over to Drake and, hearing the dragon groan slightly, was assured that he wouldn't need to put up with anymore flaming surprises. Rave ran back to where his bike had been halted and pulled it upright. He looked at the back of the motorcycle, but other than a melted tire and some parts where the paint had bubbled from the heat, his preferred mode of transport was unharmed. Rolling the bike alongside him, Rave set off back down the road on foot, attempting to catch up to Slayer Green.

"Just perfect," Rave grunted sarcastically as he pulled his bike along. "I wish everyday could be like this."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the meantime, Ringo and Silvia had been doing a fairly good job of staying ahead of Slayer Green. The train station lay just a couple blocks ahead, and Ringo pointed to it with a smile.

"Hey, I think we're gonna make it!" He shouted to Silvia.

Silvia suddenly grabbed Ringo by the tail, pulling him backward just as Slayer Green pulled up next to him and threw a punch. The raccoon yelped in pain, then again in surprised as he felt a sudden build up of electricity in his fur from the close proximity of the tazer fist. Slayer Green came to a stop, placing itself between its enemies and their destination.

"So now what do we do?" Silvia whispered.

This question was answered as Slayer Green lunged right at her with a fist pulled back for a powerful blow. In one motion, Silvia tossed the emerald to Ringo and ducked to her left, the fist only grazing her shoulder. This was enough, however, as lightning arched from Slayer Green's limb and danced over Silivia's body for a second. The girl screamed before falling over, her body twitching from the residual charge.

"Silvia!" Ringo yelled, momentarily forgetting about the emerald he had caught and running to his friend's side.

He pressed a finger to the side of Siliva's neck, and allowed himself a sigh of relief. She was still breathing, and her pulse, though quickened from the running, was present. He gently shook her shoulders, paying no attention to the approaching threat.

"Silvia, please Siliva wake up," Ringo worried, struggling to revive his comrade.

Silvia moaned softly, her body almost completely numb, "Emerald…get away…"

Ringo looked to at the gem in his left hand, and then looked up…

Rave stood over him, Slayer Green clashing its fists together in a menacing way. Without thinking, Ringo slammed his right fist into the biker hedgehog's stomach, Rave stumbling back a step from the sudden blow.

"That all you got, rock star?" Rave taunted as he stepped forward again.

Rave delivered a punch of his own into the side of Ringo's head. The blow was more than enough to send the raccoon sliding to the right, landing roughly on his side as the emerald flew from his grasp. Slayer Green claimed the jewel, while Ringo managed to get back to his knees. Rave stood over the would-be hero again, a mocking smile on his face. Seeing this, Ringo clenched his fists.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Rave asked. "What do you think you're trying to fight for? Peace? Justice? Come on, I won't tell anyone…It's the fox girl ain't it? I don't blame ya…"

Rave was forcibly silenced as Ringo swung his left fist up and slammed the biker's jaws together. Rave stumbled back, rubbing his fresh bruise and running his tongue inside his mouth to check for cracked teeth. Growling, he stormed forward, reaching for his sword when a new voice emerged.

"Rave! What is taking so long?" Eggman's voice demanded from the 'mouth' of Slayer Green.

Rave stopped, his hand closed over the hilt of his weapon as he turned to his computerized partner. He looked back to Ringo as he growled, "Pest control."

Rave brought his leg up in a swift motion, striking Ringo in the stomach and sending the breathless raccoon to the ground. Rave walked back over to his damage motorcycle, Slayer Green obediently following him.

"Okay, you can send that weird platform thing," Rave growled.

"You mean the Egg Platform?" Eggman verified.

"Do you have to name everything 'Egg-something?'" Rave asked. "Just make sure the Egg-Garage is ready to fix my ride!"

A humming noise sounded overhead, and the platform floated down. Rave rolled his motorcycle onto it, Slayer Green still following, and the machine took off back to the Egg Carrier. Slayer Green triumphantly held up the blue emerald as they headed into a bank of clouds.

Back on ground level, Drake ran up to his companions, doubling over as he tried to catch his breath. Silvia moaned slightly, feeling starting to return to her extremities as she heard the dragon approach.

"Drake, are you?" Silvia wondered, managing to get to her knees.

"I'm…Just a little…Winded," Drake assured the fox as he helped her up. "What about…Ringo?"

Ringo groaned as he clutched his stomach and got to his feet again. He looked close to being sick, but somehow he managed to keep his lunch down.

"When I get my hands on that punk," Ringo swore. "I'll make him wish he never even heard of Renegade!"

Ringo fell back to his knees, Silvia limping over to him and helping him back up.

"Okay, that's enough. I told you, we should have left it to Sonic," Silvia warned.

As if in response to this, Tails' voice suddenly crackled over the radio.

"Guys, how's your search going?" Asked the young vulpine.

Drake caught the walkie-talkie as Silvia tossed it to him. He fumbled it in his tired hands before adjusting his grip and pressing down on the talk button.

"Um…Let's say it could be better," Drake admitted.

Urgh… 

_I can't describe how much that hurt, both my body and my pride._

_So much for one Chaos Emerald, and that means a new slayer too._

_I hope Sonic and the others are having more luck._

_Check out chapter eight if you want to find out. I call it_

**Swimming Lessons**

_I'm just gonna go watch the stars fly around my head for a while._


	8. Swimming lessons

_Hey there! I'm Op the Illusory._

_While Rave dealt with the little rock stars, I was sent on a mission of my own._

_I can't believe where I was sent though! Eggman has a sick sense of humor._

_It's so dank and dirty; no place for nice girl like me!_

_Anyway, here's what you all came to see:_

Chapter 8

Swimming lesson

Not many people who lived in Station Square knew about the coalmines that once ran under the city. These once plentiful sources of natural fuel had long since run dry, and as time went on were slowly integrated into the growing city's sewer network. In the present day, nobody other than the odd sanitation worker no-one believed ever came across the remains of the mines, lost within the twisting maze of pipe work and wires under their feet.

While Renegade was making their way to Station Square Hotel, Tails' emerald radar had picked up on one of the Chaos Emeralds under Station Square Park. Seeing as the park itself had no entrances to the sewers on its grounds, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy (who had decided tag along to close to Sonic) had been forced to find the next closest manhole cover and head into those same pipes mentioned previously.

Fortunately, the radar provided a clear mark of which direction the emerald lay in.

Unfortunately, it did not provide the team with a map of the sewers.

Tails heard a hiss of static come from the radio he was carrying, and as he held up Sivlia's voice came through.

"Tails? Sonic? Can anyone hear me?" Silvia asked, sounding a bit worried.

"Hold on guys, it's Renegade," Tails called ahead to the other three as he turned on his communicator.

"Hey, it's not the first time you've heard them on the radio," Sonic joked, eliciting a giggle from Amy.

"Sonic, do us all a favor and don't tell any jokes," Knuckles requested as he tromped ahead a bit. "They stink worse than this sewer."

"According to the radar, the Emerald has to be either in, under, or over the hotel," Explained Tails into his walkie-talkie. "That's all I can figure from my readings though…"

"Tails!" Knuckles shouted, his voice echoing from up ahead.

Tails nearly dropped his emerald radar, fumbling it for a moment before managing to secure it under one arm. Breathing a sigh of relief, he pressed down on the side button of the radio as he turned in the direction Knuckles had yelled from.

"Hold on a second Knuckles!" Tails called back. "Sorry guys, you're on your own from here. Just be careful alright?"

Whatever response the band had wasn't heard as Tails put away the radio and ran to catch up with Knuckles, Sonic and Amy just ahead of him. As they came up, they saw Knuckles rapping his fingers against the side of the pipe with a distasteful scowl on his face.

"You said the emerald was straight ahead, right?" Knuckles challenged.

Tails double checked the radar, and nodded as he looked over the readout.

"Um…Yeah it should be right on the other side of…this…wall…ooh," Tails grimaced. "Guess we'll need to find a way around."

Sonic peeked over his friend's shoulder, noticing the emerald-shaped blip on the screen.

"Hey Tails, is that emerald moving?" Sonic asked.

Tails did a double take as he watched the crystal on screen slowly slide toward the left, pixel-by-pixel.

"Maybe it's caught in a current somewhere," Tails guessed.

Amy looked at their surrounding, and frowned.

"Do we need to find the emerald _that _badly?" She wondered aloud.

-------------------------------------------

Little to the knowledge of Sonic and the others, the emerald Tails had picked up on was already spoken for. Slayer Yellow slowly trudged through the slimy water, disposed paper, and you-don't-want-to-know-what-else with Op (cradling in her arms) sliding behind it, trying to stay in the shallower liquid near the wall.

"Are we there yet? The humidity down here is ruining my hair and the smell is making Exey sick," Op complained.

"Chao…" moaned Ex, looking slightly green in the face.

Slayer Yellow either couldn't hear Op, or had decided to resolutely ignore her out of protest for being forced to drag her along. It continued ahead about ten more steps, then paused and looked around. Its eyes blazed yellow in the darkness around it as it turned toward the wall to its right.

"Did you find something?" Op asked, sounding hopeful.

Slayer Yellow remained silent as always. It merely pulled back one fist, and slammed it against the bottom of the pipe. A series of cracking noises was heard, and Op felt her weight shift as the pipe began to break away.

"Why?" She moaned, glaring at Slayer Yellow as the bot braced itself against the wall.

With a final lurch, the section of tubing that Eggman's underlings were standing in broke away from the rest, plummeting ten feet straight down. It landed with a tremendous _clang_ which echoed off in the distance, and in Op's ears, as she picked herself up from a small puddle of sludge that she had landed in. Slayer Yellow relaxed its body, and moved toward the open end of the pipe, shoving its way past Op.

"Hey, that was mean!" Op whined as she chased after the yellow robot. "If Ravey were here, you'd get punished for that…"

Slayer Yellow simply raised both hands, placing them over its ears as it continued ahead. Op was so busy complaining that she didn't even noticed that they now walking through a tunnel carved from stone rather than one of metal.

----------------------------------------------------

Going on an educated guess, Sonic had led his group further along the tunnel, winding up at a branch that went in the direction that the emerald radar had pointed to. Tails had a worried look on his face as he tried to check the machine again, shaking the device a few times before holding it up.

"Hey guys, I lost track of the emerald!" Tails called out.

"What!" Knuckles shouted. "We just had it a minute ago! How could you have lost it?"

"Hold on, let me try expand the range a little more…" Tails said, fiddling with a knob on the side of the gizmo.

A smile crossed his face as a small blip reappeared on the screen.

"Okay, sorry I got it again. Should be about fifty meters ahead," Tails instructed, pointing down their new path.

"You know, I bet Sonic could the emerald a lot faster if just he and I went," Amy suggested, looking slightly hopeful.

"He'd probably get their faster by himself," Knuckles commented. "Hey, why doesn't he take the radar and scout ahead a little?"

"Hey, you had a good idea for once," Sonic smiled.

Tails nodded in agreement and tossed the radar to Sonic, who caught it and dashed off in a blaze of blue. Amy glared at Knuckles, her hand reaching for her infamous hammer as the echidna backed away from her.

"What, what'd I do?" Knuckles asked as Amy closed in.

Before Amy could manifest her hammer and clobber the guardian with it, Sonic suddenly snapped back into place in front of everyone, splashing them with the foul water that flowed under their feet.

"Whoops, sorry guys," Sonic apologized as his friends wiped the slime from their fur. "It's safe up ahead, but you might want to see this."

Following Sonic, the others found the pipe opened into a much more spacious tunnel, this one made of stone with the occasional vein of coal or quartz running through the wall. The foul sewage drained the pipe they hopped out of, and flowed along the floor to a pool of disgusting liquid on the other side of the chamber.

"Ugh…I'd heard Station Square had a little sewage problem since the whole Chaos incident, but I didn't think they just dumped it down here," Amy winced.

"Hey, I've been here," Knuckles realized, looking around the area.

Without a word of explanation, the echidna suddenly charged down the tunnel.

"Hey, Knuckles, where are you going?" Tails yelled after him.

"Maybe we should follow him," Amy suggested, only to discover that Sonic and Tails were already taking off after their friend. "Hey wait for me!"

Following the tunnel away the sewer pool, the group found themselves emerging into a much larger chamber. Stalactites hung from the ceiling far above them, and a ten-foot wide stone path ran along the edge of a vast pool of water that filled the center of the cave. A gigantic pillar stood in the middle of the chamber, protruding out of the water and all the way to the ceiling.

"Whoa…" Tails breathed, looking around. "What is this?"

"The Aquatic Mines," Knuckles answered, stepping closer to the edge of the water. "I think they used to be a coal pit that ran under the city. They must have stopped using it because of the flooding, and folks forgot about it. How else you think I caught up to you guys while you looking for the president during the Eclipse Cannon thing?"

Sonic looked at the Emerald Radar, and smiled as he pointed at it.

"Hey, looks like the emerald is in this room," Sonic grinned.

"But this place is huge!" Amy exclaimed.

"And most of it is underwater," Knuckles pointed out. "Tails, you can swim, right?"

"Yeah, a little," Tails nodded.

"Good, I don't know how to use that contraption of yours, so you're going diving with me to find the emerald," Knuckles ordered.

"Hey, who put you in charge of this?" Amy challenged.

"Well, he's the best swimmer out of us," Sonic pointed out. "And besides that, it gives us a little break."

Hearing that, Amy stopped complaining and immediately grabbed hold of Sonic's arm.

"Okay, you and Tails enjoy your little swim, Knuckles," Amy grinned. "Sonic and I will keep watch."

Tails stepped to the edge of the pool and fiddled with the range on the radar again.

"If I'm right, the emerald should be close to the center of the area," Tails observed.

"Alright, see you in the water!" Knuckles said, prior to diving right in.

He surfaced a moment later and began to paddle toward the center of the pool. Keeping a tight grip on the radar, Tails plunged into the water himself and began to swim after Knuckles.

--------------------------------------------

On the opposite side of the water chamber, hidden from the other group's sight behind the pillar, Slayer Yellow was 'patiently' waiting as Op pulled out a bevy of swim gear and prepared Ex for some fun in the water.

"And here's your little inner tube…and your little swim cap…and your little snorkel…" Op cooed as she finished piling up more swimming gear than most folks bring to the beach.

Ex let out a happy sounding cheer through her snorkel as she began waddling toward the water in her flippered feet. Her arms were forced to a ninety-degree angle due to the water wings, and her eyes were barely visible under her goggles. Slayer Yellow watched the ridiculous little creature hop into the water and begin to paddle away toward the middle of the pool.

"Don't go too far out, stay close to mommy!" Op cautioned her pet.

Slayer Yellow stepped to the edge of the water itself and focused its gaze on the center of the chamber.

"You'd better make sure she doesn't drown," Op warned.

Slayer Yellow once paid no mind to Op and stepped over the edge. It landed in the water with a massive splash and plummeted straight to the bottom. Op just sighed, and looked up from where she sat to see Ex, now paddling happily in circles.

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Knuckles and Tails stopped swimming and tread water when they got to the pillar in the center of the room. "Alright, Tails," Knuckles said, "Where's the emerald?"

Tails checked his radar and pointed down, stating, "We should be right on top of it… wait a second."

The young fox did a double take and smiled, "Hey! We could be getting two emeralds for the price of one. I'm picking up a second chaos emerald somewhere under water."

Knuckles looked pleased as he got ready to dive into the depths of the mines. "Alright," he quietly cheered, "just point where we need to go."

With that, the two took a deep breath and disappeared underwater.

Beneath the surface of the underground lake, Knuckles took the lead, swimming his way toward the bottom of the cave. Tails paddled hard, trying to keep up with the echidna while keeping one eye on the waterproof screen of his emerald radar. Tails squinted at the device, his vision blurred by the water, as he turned the knob in an effort to get a clearer picture.

Had either of them been looking up, they probably would have noticed Ex joyfully splashing her way across the chamber…

----------------------------------

Back above the surface of the water, Amy sat at the very edge of the lake, soaking her bare feet in the water. Sonic was leaning against the wall next to the entrance they had used, as far from the water as he could possibly get.

"Don't you think being a little silly, Sonic?" Amy asked, kicking her feet and watching as the ripples spread.

"Nah, I just don't want to get my feet wet," Sonic assured Amy.

"Come on, it's just the two of us here, and all the crystals and this pretty lake…It's kind of romantic, don't you think?" Amy giggled as she stood back up and put her shoes back on.

Sonic gulped as Amy closed on him, a grin on her face as she took his hand. Casting his gaze around for something to break the enamored teen's mood, he spied a small shape swimming on the surface of the water.

"Hey, what's that?" He gasped, pointing at his sighting.

Amy turned around, and moved back toward the water to get a better look at the swimming phenomena. She smiled as she recognized what the creature was, albeit with some difficulty due to all the swimming gear it wore.

"It's a chao! Oh, isn't it cute?" Amy cooed as she knelt down and waved to the little critter. "Hi there little guy."

The chao stopped swimming, allowing its water wings and tube to push it upright. It faced toward Amy, and let out a happy sounding cry as it waved one cushioned paw to the pink hedgehog.

"Now, now, Exy, you shouldn't talk to strangers," A voice cautioned from nearby.

Amy, Sonic, and the chao all looked toward the wall on the right. Op was slowly walking along the path, gazing at her chao like a proud mother watches their child. She looked up to Sonic and Amy as Ex began paddling toward her.

"Um…Sonic? Isn't that one of the bikers from the news?" Amy asked, stepping away from the water.

"I think so," Sonic nodded.

"Aren't they working for Eggman now?" Amy continued.

"It sure looks that way," Sonic answered, raising his voice to address the newcomer. "Hey, what are Eggman's cronies doing down here?"

"What do you think," Op challenged. "We're here for the Chaos Emerald."

"We?" Amy and Sonic both asked.

"Yeah, me and little Exy," Op clarified as she lifted her chao from the water. "We also brought along that big, yellow robot, but he jumped into the lake…"

"Yellow robot?" Sonic gasped. "And it's in the water?"

"Tails and Knuckles are down there," Amy realized.

"Really? Well…It sucks to be them," Op giggled.

Out of nowhere, Amy suddenly pulled out a large, red and yellow mallet. She pointed it at Op in a threatening gesture.

"You're working with that oversized tin can, call it off!" Amy ordered.

"_Oh yeah, time to show Sonic just how useful I can be on these missions,"_ Amy coached herself.

"Call it off? And get these boots wet? I don't think so," Op scoffed. "Besides, I don't take orders from preppy little fan-girls."

Something in Amy snapped for a moment, and she glared at Op. It may have been true, but Amy did not like to be called a fan-girl (at least not in front of Sonic).

"I don't need to take that from you!" Amy shouted as she ran toward Op, raising her weapon.

Op gently set Ex on the floor, and tapped her toward the pool.

"Exy, go play," Op instructed.

"Amy, wait!" Sonic yelled, trying to calm the fan-girl down.

Amy didn't listen to Sonic, she closed in on Op and delivered a powerful swing with her hammer. Unfortunately, she swung through empty air as Op gracefully back flipped to safety. Landing, the purple hedgehog's hand suddenly flashed forward, and Amy felt a breeze as something flew by her face.

"What the…?" Amy gasped, reaching for her cheek.

Turning around, she and Sonic both stared at a knife, which now was embedded in the wall behind Amy. Op slowly held up her hands with the air of a performer.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Op the Illusory," Op announced to the two other hedgehogs. "And her amazing Indian…"

Op suddenly snapped her wrists and three extremely sharp knives appeared in each hand, held between her fingers.

"…Knife throwing act," Op grinned.

Amy took a step back, while Op's hands both flicked out sending their payloads toward the girl. In a flash of blue, Amy was suddenly from harm's way, leaving the blades to stick into the wall again.

Sonic set Amy back on her feet, releasing her shoulder and wrist as he did so.

"You okay?" He asked.

"She's throwing knives!" Amy yelled, unharmed but shocked by the sudden attack. "What kind of crazy girl is she?"

Op's hands flew out again, and Sonic once more pulled himself and Amy away from a barrage of knives. The daggers clattered to the floor where the couple had once stood, a few of them sticking straight up out of the stone.

"This isn't good, you ought to get somewhere safe," Sonic instructed Amy as he put her down again.

"No way, I can help," Amy protested.

"Sorry, I only need one volunteer for this act," Op interjected as she pulled out two more knives and raced toward her targets.

She gasped as Sonic suddenly blurred right past her, pulling her weapons from her grasp and tossing them into the water.

"You know, you could put an eye with those," Sonic joked.

"Well that's the idea, blue boy," Op said, pulling out another pair of knives and charging at the hero.

Sonic began to back away, dodging as Op swung at him in what looked like a deadly dance.

------------------------------------------------------------

In the meantime, while Sonic and Amy tried to deal with their unwelcome guest, Tails and Knuckles had discovered a small, underwater chamber with a fairly large crack in the ceiling. Fresh air was pocketed in this chamber, and the two of them were taking a moment to catch their breath.

"Hey Tails, you still picking up that second emerald?" Knuckles asked.

"Yeah…" Tails nodded, looking at the screen. "But it's weird, it's moving again."

"Yeah, another thing," Knuckles pointed out. "We know Eggman has four of the emeralds, at least we're pretty sure he does, and we already know where the other three are supposed to be, that's why we split up. So why are we picking up two emeralds down here?"

Tails thought for a moment, before answering, "Remember the emerald we sent the Renegades after? Maybe it wasn't in the hotel, but underneath it."

"Then why is it moving now?" Knuckles asked.

"Who knows," Tails shrugged. "It might have just fallen into an underground stream, and it's still carrying the momentum somehow."

Knuckles nodded his head slowly, the idea made a little sense at least.

"Anyhow, the sooner we find it, the sooner we find out," Tails pointed out.

"Then let's go," Knuckles instructed.

The two of them dove under again, swimming back out into the main chamber. As they emerged from the side chamber though, they came upon a most unwelcome sight.

Slayer Yellow was slowly tromping by, marching along the bottom of the pool toward the pillar at the center, its mobility greatly hampered by the water. Tails began to open his mouth, instinct causing him to gasp, but Knuckles quickly clamped the fox's muzzle shut, preventing him from inhaling any water. Tails waved to Knuckles, signaling he was okay now, and the echidna released him.

Slayer Yellow clearly noticed the two yet, it seemed focused, almost obsessed, with getting to the central pillar. Looking at his radar, Tails pointed at it, then to the pillar. Knuckles nodded, picking up on the clue: The emerald was embedded somewhere in the pillar. The two began to swim toward the structure as quickly as possible, while trying to avoid drawing the attention of the robot.

Keeping one eye on the radar's screen, Tails and Knuckles swam right over Slayer Yellow's head. The robot paused in mid-step though, and looked up as the emerald radar began to let out a series of high-pitched beeps as it came close to its target. Its yellow optical sensors narrowed as it recognized the figures passing over it.

Reaching up with one mighty arm, the bot clamped its hand around the ankle of the passing fox, pulling Tails down and away from Knuckles. Knuckles spun around, raising his fists as the yellow automation used its other hand to pin Tails to the bottom of the lake. The fox struggled, unsuccessfully, to break free of his captor, while Knuckles closed in on the robot and grabbed hold of the arm himself.

Mustering his strength, the echidna began to pull upward on the limb, trying to free his friend. Slayer Yellow must not have appreciated the gesture, as it swung out with its free arm and batted Knuckles aside. The echidna found himself spinning through the water, coming to a stop as he gently bumped into the side of the pillar. Knuckles shook off a wave of dizziness, and as he did he noticed something glittering that was sticking out of the side of the pillar.

Knuckles took a closer look at the object, noting it was light blue in color, and almost the size of his fist. He smiled, then turned around and looked toward Slayer Yellow, who seemed interested in attempting to crush Tails against the ground. Placing his feet on the surface behind him, Knuckles kicked as hard as he could off the wall and extended his fists in front of him.

Slayer Yellow was paying no attention to the target it had knocked away. It began to increase the force it was applying to Tails, when suddenly Knuckles plowed fist first into the side of its head. Slayer Yellow stumbled, its balance ruined from the blow and the underwater environment, causing it to lose its grip on its captive. Tails swam free, keeping a tight hold on his radar as he did so.

Knuckles pointed to Tails, and then pointed up to the area where he had been knocked to earlier. Tails looked to his radar, then to the spot Knuckles had gestured to, and nodded. He began to swim upward toward the same area Knuckles had just sprung from, while Knuckles closed the gap between himself and Slayer Yellow once again, brining another blow down on the top of the robot's head.

Slayer Yellow recovered much more quickly from the second blow, however, and began to sluggishly swing its arms in an attempt to flatten his aggressor. Knuckles swam to the side, avoiding the arm while the force of the water following forced him closer to the floor.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Hold still!" Op shouted as she attempted once more to puncture Sonic with another barrage of knives.

Sonic's response was to nimbly dodge to the side, letting another swarm of blades get stuck in the wall. He paused for a moment, exaggerating a yawn, as Op pulled out four more of her daggers.

"Don't you ever run out of ammo?" Sonic wondered aloud.

_Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk_

Sonic had once more dodged aside, causing the razor sharp projectiles to strike solid stone once more. Op seemed to be getting more frustrated the more times she missed, not even noticing as Ex stopped paddling in the water to watch her fight.

Amy had taken a seat. Op had more or less forgotten about her with Sonic running every which-way, leaving the pink hedgehog to worriedly look from the water, to Sonic, and then back to the water again. They had been fighting for about ten minutes now, and Op was no closer to scoring a hit than she had been with the first knife.

The only thing that had really kept Sonic and Amy from trying to capture Op was the fact that she was still pulling knives seemingly from nowhere. Any attempts to get close enough to detain her would more than likely end with her pinning them to the wall or running them through. Keeping this in mind, both of them were just waiting for her to either tire herself out, or run out of knives to throw.

Neither of these seemed close to happening.

"Chao?" Ex squeaked from the water, drawing Amy's attention.

Something was surfacing beneath the tiny chao, and the little creature giggled happily as it rode up on whatever it was. The water fell away from the figure, revealing Tails, who triumphantly held the cyan chaos emerald over his head.

"Sonic, Amy, we got it!" Tails yelled.

Ex looked at the shiny gem that her 'mount' was holding, and a small drop of drool appeared at the edge of her mouth. Tails paddled his way to the edge of the water and pulled himself back onto land, Ex still riding on his head.

"Um Tails, you have a chao on your head," Amy warned.

"Huh?" Tails asked, looking up and noticing the critter as it waved at him. 'Where did you come from?"

Ex's response was to leap from the fox's head and grab hold of his arm. Baring her sharp little teeth, she clamped them onto the emerald Tails was holding with surprising jaw strength.

"Hey, let go of that!" Tails exclaimed, trying to shake the chao off.

"Let go of my Exy!" Op's voice suddenly called out.

Tails looked up to see Op brandishing two knives and preparing to throw them. The fox raised his hand defensively, unintentionally moving Ex in front of his face.

"Exy!" Op gasped, dropping her weapons. "You're so mean, you'd use a poor little chao as a shield."

"What?" Tails asked, opening his eyes to see what had transpired. "Oh, um, I didn't mean to…"

"Come to mommy Exy," Op called, trying to coax the chao back to her.

Surprisingly, it worked. Ex obviously respected her 'mother's' whished more than she desired to teethe on the emerald and released the gem from her jaws. She ran back to Op, shedding her swimming equipment as she went, while Knuckles suddenly burst out of the water, swam to edge, and climbed out.

"You have the emerald?" He asked Tails.

Tails nodded, and held up the prize.

"Good, we should leave," Knuckles instructed. "Now."

"What's your hurry?" Sonic asked, running back to the other three.

"There's a big yellow robot in the water, and I think it's climbing the side of the lake to catch up to me," Knuckles warned. "I think we'd rather not fight it on land."

"That big yellow guy is after you?" Sonic clarified. "Okay, let's get out of here."

With that, the four heroes took off. Op was too distracted, doting on Ex, who she feared may have been traumatized by being held hostage.

--------------------------------------------------

Back on board the Egg Carrier, Eggman was grinding his teeth as he watched Slayer Yellow's camera. The robot finally managed to extract itself from the water, only to find Op playfully tickling Ex.

"Op!" Eggman shouted, grabbing his microphone and projecting his voice through the robot. "I just saw that pesky brat Tails swim off with the chaos emerald, where did he go?"

Op looked up at the robot with a thoughtful look on her face.

"I dunno, but they'd be long gone by now," She answered. "I was taking care of Exy, that mean fox held her hostage."

Ex was rolling around the floor and laughing uncontrollably even though Op had stopped tickling her. Eggman grumbled something under his breath, obviously displeased with the situation.

"Report back to the Egg Carrier immediately, understood?" He ordered through clenched teeth.

"Be back on the surface soon," Op nodded.

Eggman turned off the microphone, and flicked to a different screen. Not even bothering to look at it, he picked up his radio and proceeded to vent.

"Rave! What is taking so long?" He yelled through Slayer Green.

A brief moment passed before Rave's voice growled, "Pest control."

A cry of pain could be heard over the radio, and Eggman looked at the screen with a semi-satisfied grin. Ringo lay on the street, with Rave standing over him triumphantly. Slayer Green looked to the blue emerald it clutched in its hand, and Eggman picked up the radio to congratulate his subordinate.

"Okay, you can send that weird platform thing," Rave growled at Slayer Green's face.

"You mean the Egg Platform?" Eggman verified.

"Do you have to name everything 'Egg-something?'" Rave asked. "Just make sure the Egg-Garage is ready to fix my ride!"

Eggman chuckled as he punched a command into his terminal, and then shut off Slayer Green's camera. He looked now to Slayer Red, who was currently stalking through what seemed to be a thick jungle. The robot's blades flashed across the screen, slicing the foliage out of the way, and revealing a large compound made of reinforced steel.

"About time," Eggman said to his creation. "The other two have already reported in, one failure, one success. You are not to fail, understood Slayer Red?"

The camera view shifted up and down, indicating a nod.

"Excellent, begin your assault on Prison Island," Eggman ordered. "Either come back with the emerald, or not at all!"

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_That puts an end to this chapter. It was fun, wasn't it?_

_The next one should be up soon. It's called,_

**Enemy of My Enemy**

_Ex and I will see you there, won't we?_

_If you don't read it, you'll make Exy cry!_


	9. Enemy of My Enemy

_Hello, everyone. I am Dr. Eggman._

_For a long time now, the military organization known as, "GUN" has tried to oppose me._

_They haven't been very successful._

_So, when it came time to break into their base, I wasn't that worried._

_Oh, Slayer Red! It's time to play!_

Chapter 9

Enemy of My Enemy

Prison Island, scenically located in an undisclosed location somewhere off the coast of Station Square, looked from afar like an idyllic deserted island. Groves of palm trees and exotic plants sprang up along the beaches, and only the occasional dolphin or whale disturbed the smooth surface of the surrounding water.

On the opposite side of the island, the one most folks never got the chance to see, was place code-named Metal Harbor. This top-secret military facility was a twisted maze of battleships, fighter planes, and other military hardware, until one managed to reach the shore of the island. There, the steel jungle gave way to an underground compound, inside of which was hidden the single most elite defense force the country had ever known: GUN.

No one was positive what GUN was supposed to stand for, but the head officers of this military organization were very clear on their goals of defending the people of Earth from any and all threats to their lives and safety. Utilizing the latest in radar, sonar, satellite, weapons, robotics, and a slew of other technologies, they were single handedly responsible for saving the day many times before Sonic and his friends became known.

At the time, Rouge and Shadow were approaching this intimidating fortress. Neither of them seemed the least bit worried though, even when a pair of armed guards stopped them as they walked up to the main entrance.

"Halt!" Barked the guard, waving his weapon toward the two.

"Where do you think you're going?" The second asked.

Rouge nonchalantly pulled out a plastic card that she flicked to the first soldier with a practiced motion.

"Calm down boys, we're here on official business," Rouge smiled.

The soldier's eyes went wide as he showed the card to his partner.

"S-special Agent Rouge…We haven't heard from you in…" The guard stammered.

"Is that really important right now? We need to get inside if you don't mind," Rouge ordered.

"Yes ma'am!" Both soldier nodded, moving to the gate and pressing down on a pair of red buttons.

As the entrance slid open, Shadow just turned to Rouge with the start of a scowl.

"So you were working for GUN during the Eclipse Cannon attack," he guessed. "Were you still working for them during the Black Arms War?"

"Hey, I don't pretend to understand why they keep hiring me," Rouge shrugged as they entered the base past the saluting guards. "Of course, I'm not one to argue with a government paycheck either, especially when I can get most of it as jewels."

Rouge chuckled, while Shadow let out a frustrated sigh and shook his head.

"Seriously now," he grumbled. "Let's just find that emerald. Tails said it was on this island, so GUN more than likely already has it stored here."

"Yep, and I bet I know where, follow me," Rouge said.

Rouge took of running, Shadow jogged along behind her as the gate slammed shut.

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Meanwhile, Slayer Red crept from the jungle, its sensor taking in the sight of battleships, docks, and entrances that would go unnoticed by any organic creature.

"Remember, the Chaos Emerald is your top priority," Eggman whispered in his creation's head.

The robot nodded, and extended its blades as it boldly tromped out onto the start of the docks.

"Hey!" A voice shouted.

Slayer Red turned to see a soldier take aim toward it, his rifle trembling as he tried to steady his nerves.

"Stay where you are, you are in a restricted area!" Warned the guard, taking a step back toward a large button set into the dock behind.

In a flash of motion, Slayer Red had sliced the gun to strips of metal, and held its left arm blade pointed at the trembling soldier's throat. He stopped in his tracks, barely daring to breathe as sweat beaded on his face. Slayer Red took one last look at the human, than swung out with its right arm, the blade retracted, and sent him spiraling from the docks with a scream.

"What was that?" Someone called out up ahead, emerging from one of the hidden entrances to the base.

Slayer Red extended all three blades as another group of soldiers appeared.

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Deeper within the base, Shadow and Rouge arrived at a large set of doors. A single letter 'G' was painted over the doors, and a card reader sat next to them.

"Hmm…I guess if I wanted to hide a Chaos Emerald, these would be the doors to hide it behind," Shadow commented.

"My sentiments exactly," Rouge agreed, sliding her ID card through the reader.

"Identifying…" Beeped an electronic voice. "Rouge the Bat identified, access denied."

"What!?" Rouge gasped.

"Well, that explains why they keep hiring you," Shadow muttered. "They didn't give you security clearance to get at anything important."

"That's ridiculous, it's like they don't trust me," Rouge fumed.

"Gee, why would that be?" Shadow wondered in a sarcastic tone. "I wonder who could get through these."

"That would be me," A gruff voice responded.

Turning around, Shadow and Rouge found themselves facing a tall man in a green uniform. He had gray hair, a stern look, and a glare in his eyes (one blue, one gold).

"Well if it isn't the commander," Shadow said. "Long time no see."

"Not long enough in my opinion," the commander grumbled. "Just what do you two think you're doing here? I could have sworn I ordered them to remove all security clearance for Rouge after we completed our last 'transaction' with her."

"Apparently not," Rouge muttered, looking at her card.

"We're here about your Chaos Emerald," Shadow answered.

"How did you know we had one!" The commander shouted.

"I just found out, right now," Shadow smirked.

"Ooh, nice one," Rouge congratulated.

"I learned something from Eggman, at least," Shadow chuckled as the commander went red in the face.

"Very funny…" grumbled the older man. "Fine then, you two are to come with me, now."

"Give us one good reason," Rouge responded.

"You're security clearance is removed from the computers, so you two wouldn't be able to shut off the automated defense system if I sent it after you," responded the army man.

Rouge and Shadow both looked at each other, then Shadow nodded.

"Lead the way," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Aboard the Egg Carrier, Eggman was happily taking his newest treasure from the hands of Slayer Green. Rave stomped in, planting his sword against the wall and taking a seat, placing his feet on the table.

"What do you think, am I good, or am I good?" Rave asked.

"Admirable work Rave," Eggman grinned as he cradled the emerald, its blue light reflecting on his face. "Unfortunately, your girlfriend seems to lack your sense of duty."

"My sense of what now?" Rave asked, cleaning out one ear with his pinky finger.

Eggman didn't seem too upset with Rave. He headed for the exit with Slayer Green in tow.

"Well, I'm off to awaken my next creation, care to watch?" He offered.

"Eh…Let's wait for Op to get back," Rave suggested. "Blue's her favorite color."

"Blue? Huh, I never would have guessed with how she attacked Sonic," Eggman muttered to himself. "Very well then, I've waited a long time for this, I can hold out another twenty minutes.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Having successfully carved its way through the troops outside, Slayer Red made its entrance into the hidden army base. It carefully scanned the dark tunnel, its red eyes widening in order to see better. No guards were in the immediate vicinity, so the robot dashed inside, its built in tracker immediately locking onto the emerald.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Deeper within the complex, Shadow and Rouge were 'enjoying' a nice cup of coffee with the leader of the GUN soldiers. He had his same stern look as he shifted his gaze between the sullen Shadow and Rouge, who seemed to be more focused on her beverage.

"Enjoying your drinks?" He asked.

"Enough small talk, Commander, just get to the part where you hand over the emerald," Shadow said, trying to sound polite.

"Like we'd hand a Chaos Emerald over to you two," The commander scoffed.

"If you don't give it to us, I guarantee will just take it," Rouge warned.

"Bah, aside from the White House and the U.N., this is the single most heavily guarded facility on the face of the planet," Scoffed the military leader. "We've learned plenty from our past encounters with Eggman and other threats. Not even the Black Arms would be able to penetrate this base."

"I would bet that Eggman's newest toy could handle the Black Arms with ease," Shadow commented. "And it'd break into this base even easier."

"I'd bet you'd love me to think that," The commander grunted. "But as I've said, we've learned from our mistakes. We've even done away with several of our side facilities in order to better fund our planetary defense budget."

"Side facilities?" Rouge queried. "Oh, you mean like the guys that hired me for spy work."

"Among others…" Trailed off the commander. "But that is beside the point. This is the safest place to house anything, especially a Chaos Emerald. If you don't believe me, why not take a look for yourselves?"

The commander walked over to his desk, typing in a few commands to a computer sitting on it. He turned the screen toward Rouge and Shadow, a grin on his face as he gestured to a screen split into quarters, cycling through view from several different hallways, prisoner cells, troops in their bunks, and weapon storehouses. Occasionally, one of the four screens showed up with the image of the Chaos Emerald, sitting on a pedestal surrounded by a web of lasers.

"You see? Nothing out of the ordinary," GUN's commander said.

"Oh yeah, what about that?" Rouge challenged.

Looking back at the screen, the military leader paled slightly as he saw something appear in the view of one of the cameras. Slayer Red stopped, the camera locking onto it. The robot looked up at the device, extended its blades, and charged toward the machine, the broadcast suddenly cutting out in a hiss of static.

"That can't be good," Shadow muttered.

Another camera's feed suddenly cut, and outside of the office an alarm began to blare. Troops appeared on the remaining cameras, charging down the halls with their weapons drawn, trying to hunt down the intruder.

"Just a minor threat, it will be neutralized shortly," Grumbled the commander.

"Or your troops will," Shadow warned. "And when that happens, we can say goodbye to the Chaos Emerald."

"You think you can handle this better than GUN?" Challenged the Commander. "Why don't you prove it then?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Rouge smiled as she put down her coffee mug. "Shall we?"

"Let's," Shadow nodded.

Before the commander could tell the two that he wasn't being serious with his last comment, Shadow and Rouge had left the office and were heading down the hall.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Just outside the doors where Shadow and Rouge had been stopped before, Slayer Red was assessing the situation.

It currently was facing a pair of heavily reinforced doors, which required the proper clearance in order to get past. It was clear by the security camera that it had just destroyed that guards would be arriving soon enough, not that they would be anymore of a threat than the last group it had slashed through, but the problem of getting past the doors and to the emerald on the other side remained.

As the robot took a step to the entrance to begin an attempt to carve its way through, the sound of boots tromping down the hall came to its attention.

"Freeze!" Ordered a voice behind it.

Slayer Red slowly turned around, finding itself facing no less than a dozen soldiers, dressed in full body armor and armed with guns, grenades, knives, and generally prepared for the worst. Slayer Red extended its blades, no fear (or any other emotions) showing in its glowing eyes.

Before anyone could do anything else a voice was heard, shouting, "Hey, Rust bucket!"

The guards looked behind them to see Shadow and Rouge approaching the situation. They looked like they were ready for a battle.

"Stand down, boys," Rouge suggested, "Just let us take care of everything."

One of the soldiers pointed his rifle at the pair as the others turned back to Slayer Red and told them, "Sorry, but we don't take orders from anyone but the commander. Not even a hero and one of our old agents. Shadow, Rouge, stay out of this."

Shadow looked annoyed at being called a hero and kept moving towards the standoff. "Well, even if that is the case," Shadow said, getting ready to jump, "I don't take orders from anybody. Do I?"

The black hedgehog leapt over the group of guards and landed between them and the robot, face to face with Slayer Red. The robot took a step back and the two stared each other down for a few seconds. The hall went deathly still and silent.

Just then, a guard lost enough of his nerve to try and take a step back. The sound of his footstep was like a starting gun; Shadow and Slayer Red began their battle.

Slayer Red swung his right-handed blade in a wide, horizontal arc toward Shadow's throat. Shadow ducked under the attack and was about to counter with an uppercut, when his opponent jabbed downward at him using the blade on his opposite hand, forcing him to roll backwards to doge.

"You're quick," Shadow noted, "But not quick enough!"

With that, the ultimate life form stood and charged forward with a hard, left hook. Slayer Red stepped back so the punch hit nothing but air, but Shadow swiftly followed his punch with a backhanded attack with the same hand, this time connecting with his target's head.

Slayer Red showed no pain or surprise due to the blow. The attack didn't have enough force to damage its armor very much. The machine simply grabbed Shadow's arm with the hand on the matching side and swung out with his free hand, his blade scratching the black hedgehog's belly as he tried to step away.

While Shadow and Red were fighting, Rouge had found her way in front of the GUN soldiers. Seeing Shadow get hit, she leapt high into the air, flapping her wings once for extra lift, and dived down toward the wicked robot with a mighty kick.

Rouge's attack connected with the top of Slayer Red's head, leaving it stunned just long enough for Shadow to slip out of its grasp. Rouge tried a second kick, but Red lifted its left arm and blocked her kick on the flat side of the blade.

"Take a break, Shadow," Rouge ordered her partner as she landed between him and the mechanical monster, "This'll take a woman's touch."

Red seemed to be very annoyed with the latest interruption, his crimson eyes narrowing into thin lines on its features. The slayer lunged at Rouge with a vertical slash using its right-handed weapon. The bat took a step to the side and avoided the attack, only to have to duck her opponent's next sideways slice! She swept out with her legs and tried to trip her enemy and struck the backs of its knees, sending it to the floor.

Before Slayer Red's back hit the metal floor, its tail lifted it back up into a standing position. The robot sent a flurry of slashes and jabs at its winged target, only for her to narrowly dodge each blow, backing up with each move. As the fight moved closer to them, the GUN soldiers backed up. Shadow moved to the side quickly after making sure his injury wasn't fatal and dashed behind Slayer Red.

"Look behind you, Metal Head!" The black hedgehog shouted as he grabbed Slayer Red's arms from behind.

Rouge saw her opportunity and let loose with a series of kicks, but Slayer Red was prepared. It forced Shadow to let go with a few threatening swings of the blade on its tail and then used its now free arms to block the bat's kicking attacks.

"Damn!" Shadow and Rouge cursed in unison as the mechanical warrior began slashing at both of them with its three deadly built-in swords.

After a few seconds of dodging, ducking, and blocking Slayer Red's latest onslaught, Rouge got an inspired looked on her face. She jumped over another jab and flapped her wings, flipping along the way. She now stood behind Shadow, who was now receiving the full force of the evil machine's assault.

"Hey!" Shadow protested, "What do you think you're doing?!"

Rouge grabbed the hero, telling him, "Just charge when I tell you to!" and flying backwards, away from the slayer.

Slayer Red took a moment to assess what his foes were doing, and got into a defensive stance. Rouge dropped Shadow as she landed and shouted, "Get him, Shadow!"

Shadow charged forward, ready to attack, when he realized that he was about to ram headlong into a walking blender. Turning to the side, he instead tried to out flank the robot, but to no avail; Slayer Red followed his every move…

…but not Rouge's.

The batgirl continued in a straight charge that Shadow was originally moving on, and now had an open shot at Slayer Red's side. Leaping forward and kicking out with both legs, she scored a direct hit and sent the metallic creature sprawling to the ground, shocked and seemingly surprised. Before it hit the floor, Shadow threw a kick of his own and booted the mechanical monster it the chest, sending it flying against a wall.

"Got ya," Rouge declared, Shadow giving her a nod as she stood back up.

Slayer Red got up, checking itself for damage. It now had a large crack in its chest plate that a bright, red light was shining from. Eggman's voice was heard coming from where the machine's mouth would be, "Slayer Red, what is taking you so long? Report!"

The robot sent its master a video feed of what it saw and looked at the light coming from its chest. "Oh no!" Eggman screamed, horrified.

"Eggman?" Shadow asked, "What do you want with the emeralds this time?!"

The robot looked at Shadow as the mad scientist answered his question, "That's on a need to know basis, and I'm the only one that needs to know," Eggman then turned his attention back to his servant, "Slayer Red, forget about the emerald! Abort previous order! Get back to base immediately!"

The slayer nodded and turned to its only exit; the hallway that was currently blocked by a dozen GUN soldiers. The mech charged at the group of shocked humans and, narrowly staying ahead of their fire, jumped over them and ran out of the base, some bullets taking small pieces off of its metallic hide. Shadow and Rouge followed, closing in on the machine the entire way.

The robot dashed outside, into the bright light of the setting sun on the horizon. Shadow and Rouge cover their eyes as they exited the dark base and emerged into the light that shined right in their eyes. When they saw Slayer Red, it was jumping onto a metal platform and flying away.

"Rouge, can't you follow that thing?" Shadow asked.

"Sorry, but I can't fly _that _fast," She answered, "Looks like we'll have to finish that Slayer some other time."

"I think you've done enough for one day," Said a voice behind them.

Turning around, the two anthros saw a very angry GUN commander with a squad of troops with him. He ordered two of his soldiers, "Get these hooligans off if my base. We don't need glory hogs around here."

As they were being escorted off the base, Rouge asked, "But what about the chaos emerald? Eggman will be back for it."

The commander replied, "When that thing comes back, we'll be better prepared. The emerald stays with us unless the president tells me otherwise. End of conversation."

A look of anger and disappointment came across Shadow's face. He knew just as well as Rouge that Eggman would send another Slayer, he just couldn't believe how stubborn GUN's commander was being.

"Stubborn humans…" Shadow muttered under his breath.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, aboard the Egg Carrier, Op smiled as she, Yellow, and Red all entered the lab. Ex plodded along behind the three, humming happily as she jumped up and landed on Op's head.

"Hi everybody," Op grinned. "How'd you do Ravey?"

"Great, except for my hog," Rave answered. "That'll fixed soon, or the garage bots will."

"I'm sure your 'hog' is good as new by now, and Slayer Red will be as well soon enough," Eggman stated as he walked over to a new pod and opened it up. "But first, it's time for the great unveiling of my next creation. Allow me to introduce: Slayer Blue!"

Eggman placed the emerald into the center of the robot's chest. The plate closed over it, and the robots eyes lit up with an energetic blue. It stepped out of the pod, giving everybody a clear look.

This one was cat-like, like all the others, though a bit shorter. Its hands seemed slightly oversized, but it held them up showing what appeared to be speakers on its palms.

"Ooh, nice color," Op admired.

"I like red better," Rave commented.

"Better dead than red!" A voice sounded out from Slayer Blue.

"What the hell?" Rave asked. "It talks?"

Eggman chuckled as Slayer Blue held its palms out.

"Not quite, this one is equipped with a sound system that runs through its hands," Eggman explained.

Slayer Blue snapped its fingers, and the word "Yes!" sounded from its speakers.

"Alright, so…it can talk back?" Rave guessed.

"You are correct sir! Ha ha ha!" Laughed another track from Slayer Blue.

"Why does its voice keep changing?" Op asked.

"In order to make it a more interesting weapon, I equipped it with a large library of sound clips and songs." Eggman explained.

"_It's the music that we choose, It's the music that we choose,"_ Slayer Blue sang out, snapping its fingers again.

"So it's a walking iPod?" Rave sneered.

"You've never seen an iPod that can do this, or this, or **THIS!**" Slayer Blue played the last word of the sentence incredibly loud, thrusting its palm toward Rave at the same instant.

Rave grunted as we was blown to the ground, the entire room shaking from the vibrations.

"Did I neglect to mention Slayer Blue can amplify and focus any sound it produces into a powerful blast that can level houses?" Eggman chuckled.

"Well now it's gonna be a real nice doorstop!" Rave threatened, drawing his sword as he got to his feet.

"Now, now, we'll have none of that," Eggman cautioned. "Slayer Blue is a valuable addition to our cause."

"I'm money baby! Cha-ching!" Slayer Blue declared with another finger snap.

"Why does it snap its fingers like that?" Op asked.

"I'm not entirely sure. Each Slayer seems to have developed personality quirks, probably due to the Chaos Emeralds," Eggman answered. "Nevertheless, it's nothing to be concerned about. The fact that we've lost two emeralds is."

Op seemed a bit sheepish, while Ex seemed like she could care less as her little stomach began to rumble. Ex motioned to be fed while Eggman went on.

"But we can work around that," Eggman stated. "One emerald is still with GUN, and therefore up for grabs, and the other is in the hands of Sonic and his friends. If we time our moves, we can take both in one fell swoop."

Slayer Red stepped forward and snapped into a salute. Eggman shook his head.

"You need repairs first, for this plan, I'll need Blue to go to Prison Island," Eggman explained.

Slayer Red seemed surprised, then crossed its arms and looked away.

"Now don't be like that, I just wouldn't want you to get destroyed," Eggman assured his creation. "As for Slayers Green and Yellow, you'll be performing a special duty. Rave, Op, why don't you two take a break?"

"Aww, I've got nothing to do!" Rave complained.

"I can think of something!" Op grinned.

"Really?" Rave smiled.

"We could go shopping!" Op cheered. "Five finger discount!"

"Not what I had in mind, but I'm game," Rave shrugged.

Ex rubbed her stomach and let out a whimper, drawing Op's attention.

"Oh, but first let's get Exey something to munch on," Op suggested, cradling her pet.

"You do that," Eggman suggested as Rave and Op left.

"Hey Grease-Monkey Bot! My bike better be fixed…" Rave shouted.

Eggman watched them leave the room, and then turned to his four robots.

"Now then, here's the plan…" He grinned.

----------------------------------------------------

_Blast, that science fair reject blocked my first attempt!_

_Oh well, no matter. Slayer Blue Should be more than a match for these cretins._

_Check out the next chapter. We call it:_

**Mic Check**

_The glorious Dr. Eggman commands it!_


	10. Mic Check

**Disclaimer:** We probably should've added this disclaimer in the previous chapter, but we do not own anything that Slayer Blue "says". Also, we still don't own the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, but we do own our own, original characters.

**A/N:** Just a quick reminder to everyone reading; please review this fic. We want to get better as writers and can't without some kind of feedback. Also, we're sorry that this chapter came so much later than expected. We won't be able to update as often from now on and we (Older and Younger Hokage) apologize.

_Welcome back to the show. I'm your host for this chapter, Rave the Terror of the Highways!_

_Last time, we had some fun with those military guys… what are they called? GUN?_

_This time, heheheh… We're gonna redefine fun._

_I'm a loose canon fan character on the edge! Let's get it started already!_

Chapter 10

Mic Check

As Shadow and Rouge were finishing their battle with Slayer Red, the sun had been slowly dropping in the sky. It had just reached the horizon, casting long shadows across the Mystic Ruins as it shone through the trees. The train had recently arrived, picking up researchers and their weary assistants, while simultaneously dropping off a team with much different goals.

It hadn't taken long after escaping from Slayer Yellow for Sonic and the others to find a way out of the mines. It took even less time to find Ringo, Silvia, and Drake, who were waiting in an ally near the train station. Few words had passed between anyone as they got back on the train, and the team was completely silent even as they finally arrived back at Tails' workshop.

Settling themselves in the living room, all seven of them seemed a bit tense. This was mostly due to the fact that Silvia kept shooting glances at everyone, with an especially angry glare toward Ringo, every few seconds. Finally, she let out a deep sigh and stood up.

"Okay, we messed up, I'm sorry," She said very quickly. "Eggman got the emerald because we couldn't handle his flunkies."

"Silvia…" Ringo hissed, trying to silence the fox girl.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Sonic assured her. "If we got mad at you for being beat up, what kind of people would we be?"

"Jerks," Drake answered, eliciting a surprised look from the others. "Oh, I didn't mean you were, I just thought that was directed at me…"

Drake trailed off, and closed his mouth as quickly as possible.

"Still…I told you this was a stupid idea Ringo," Silvia said, turning to her friend.

"Okay, let's not start this again," Ringo said, standing face-to-face with Silvia and then clutching at his bruised side. "I thought we could try to help out…"

"And we messed up big time!" Silvia interrupted.

"Here we go again…" Drake lamented as his band mates began arguing. "Sorry about this, you guys."

"Well, we did manage to get one of the Chaos Emeralds at least," Tails pointed out as he reached for the television remote. "Maybe we should take a look at the news, see if Eggman's been attacking anywhere else."

"Sounds like a good idea," Knuckles agreed as the television switched on.

"…Sources reveal that the sudden sewage back up is due to a large section of the sewage pipes under Station Square collapsing for unknown reasons," the newscaster stated. "We now go to our field correspondent, Guy DeNews, with the latest on the rash of vandalisms and thefts that have been plaguing the city."

The image on the screen moved to that of a male reporter standing in front of the Station Square Hotel.

"Thanks Ted, Guy DeNews, with the latest on the attack on the famous Station Square Hotel. It seems that earlier this afternoon, a team of hoodlums smashed their way through the main lobby and absconded with a priceless gem, valued at over…"

As the amount was stated, Amy's jaw dropped. Ringo and Silvia ceased their argument immediately as they turned their attention to the t.v.

"I don't believe it, they're actually reporting about the attack," Ringo stammered.

"Well, you guys weren't exactly subtle about it," Amy pointed out as the camera panned over the thrashed entrance lobby, with police milling about while cleaning crews attempted to undo some of the damage.

"Hey, that was because of Rave…" Silvia began.

"According to official sources, police are now on the lookout for the thieves seen running from the scene with the precious jewel, owned by renowned business owner and self-proclaimed philanthropist, Sir Reginald Richington Esquire."

A black and white recording of the rich man, obviously taken over the hotel's security cameras, began playing across the screen. Everyone watched as the video played back Silvia snatching the emerald away and taking off, with Slayer Green, Ringo, Rave, and Drake in pursuit.

"The culprits have been identified as Ringo, Silvia, and Drake, the members of the up and coming rock group known as Renegade, as well one of the concert crashers from their most recent show, and an as of yet unidentified figure," DeNews reported. "Police request that citizens with any information on the whereabouts of any of the suspects…"

Whatever followed this message was drowned out by Ringo screaming for help as Silvia suddenly grabbed him, flipped him over her shoulder, then pulled him into an arm-lock with a look of rage in her eyes. Tails shut off the television, everyone's focus now on the angered girl.

"This is entirely your fault…" She growled at Ringo.

"Silvia, can't we been reasonable about thi-ow!" Ringo moaned as Silvia tightened her grip. "Apparently not…"

"I told you…" Silvia hissed, pulling tighter. "We should have left it to the police!"

"Uh, Silvia, from the looks of it, you're the one that snatched the emerald," Sonic said in a calm voice. "Now just let Ringo go, it's not like he's gonna run away."

"Oh no, he's the one that just had to get us into this mess!" Silvia shouted.

"Did I miss something here?" A voice asked from the doorway.

Shadow and Rouge entered the room, both obviously confused over why Silvia was attempting to break Ringo's arm off.

"Looks like these three got in a little trouble with the police," Knuckles explained, gesturing toward Renegade.

Drake was attempting to slowly pry Ringo loose from Silvia's grasp, but a glare from her sent the dragon cowering back several feet. Ringo seemed quite uncomfortable, letting out an occasional grunt of pain as Silvia twisted her hand to readjust her grip.

"A little help here?" Ringo asked, looking at Shadow for assistance.

"Depends, is it really your fault?" Shadow asked.

"Technically, Silvia's the one that stole the emerald," Ringo argued. "I was just trying to protect her--Silvia, you're gonna pop out my shoulder!"

"Good!" Silvia yelled.

"It's no good when she gets like this," Drake lamented. "When she starts using the Judo she learned, it's her way, or you lose a limb."

"Where did she learn Judo?" Shadow asked.

"What? A music starlet can't take a few classes at the community center?" Silvia challenged, twisting her hand over Ringo's arm again, "And it was Ringo's idea anyway!"

"Ow! Someone get her off me!" Ringo cried.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Aboard Eggman's airship, the mood was slightly less tense. Eggman watched from his laboratory as the computer screens displayed his three automations stomping their way into the launch bay, each one taking a stand aboard another hovering platform. An inspirational music was pouring through the entire hanger, and Eggman sighed.

"Slayer Blue, that is quite enough," Eggman groaned. "Save some for GUN, why don't you?"

The music ceased, and Slayer Blue snapped its fingers again.

"Well, let's head 'em up and move 'em out there, pilgrim," Slayer Blue 'said' in the timeless voice of John Wayne.

"Very well then, Slayers… Launch!" Eggman commanded.

A loud buzzer sounded in the hanger as the doors opened with a mighty _swoosh_. All three slayers braced themselves as their platforms swooped out the door, heading into the open sky.

"_I believe I can fly…I believe I can touch the sky…"_ Slayer Blue sang after another finger snap, while waving farewell to Yellow and Green as their paths separated.

Yellow seemed to be wiping its eyes as it listened to the song, until Green gave it a confused look, causing the larger robot to snap to attention. Green and Yellow both suddenly looked back up toward the Egg Carrier, drawing Blue's attention back to it as well.

The roar of an engine, a smaller one than the air fortress, was sounding from beyond the closing hanger doors. With a sudden revving, Rave's bike flew out from the doors and soared down toward Blue's platform.

Blue snapped its fingers, letting a cry of, "What the…"

_Crash!_

Rave and his bike landed directly on the platform, the engine cutting out and the brakes bringing the wheels to a squealing halt as the entire platform shook. Blue stared at Rave as he smiled at the robot.

"What, never seen a man on a bike before?" Rave challenged.

"RAVE! Just what do you think you're doing?" Eggman's voice burst from Slayer Blue.

"You can't expect me to just sit on my ass and miss the fun," Rave chuckled. "Besides, I wanted to have a shot at those army boys anyway."

"RAVE YOU JERK!" Op's voice now shouted from Blue. "What's the big idea of leaving me behind? I thought we were gonna go shopping!"

"Op, give me the microphone," Eggman's much quieter tone said in the background.

"No way! Rave, when you get back, we are having a long, boring talk about me and my needs!" Op threatened. "And the longer you're gone, the longer we talk!"

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Blue sagely quoted as a shiver ran down Rave's spine.

"Who asked you, metal head?" Rave growled. "And Op? Just sit back and enjoy the show."

"You're setting a really bad example for Ex," Op grumbled.

"Rave, you'd better not get in Slayer Blue's way," Eggman growled. "I mean that literally, I can't guarantee your safety if your anywhere in front of him."

"I can't guarantee my own safety half the time anyway, and look how I turned out," Rave smirked. "Smell ya later Eggman!"

"Wait, this discussion is not ov…" Eggman's voice suddenly cut out into a hiss of static.

Back on board the Egg Carrier, Eggman was pulling Ex out from under the computer, where the poor Chao had just learned the difference between computer wires and licorice. Her goofy grin was slightly blackened with scorch marks on her sharp little teeth.

"This is just perfect, are there any of my inventions that she won't eat?" Eggman roared.

"Maybe if you'd invented some food for her it wouldn't be as bad," Op scolded, cradling her favored pet again.

"Just…go away, please," Eggman sighed, clutching his head. "I need some alone time…"

Slayer Red sat on the nearby workbench, wondering when Eggman was going to fix him.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After an explanation of their individual adventures (during which Ringo finally admitted he was wrong and was released from Silvia's arm bar), Sonic and the others were trying to go over what to do next.

"Okay, so Eggman has five emeralds, we've got one, and the last one is with GUN on Prison Island," Tails listed off.

"Which more or less means that Eggman can go and get it whenever he wants," Shadow grumbled. "I vote we focus on getting that particular emerald first, then worry about how we get the others away from Eggman. The last thing we need is more Slayers on our hands."

"What do you think the connection between the emeralds and the Slayers is anyway?" Rouge asked. "I mean, all we know is that when Eggman gets another emerald, another Slayer shows up."

"Yeah…But down in the sewers the radar picked up two Chaos Emeralds, and one of them was moving, remember?" Tails asked.

"Oh yeah, kinda forgot about that when that knife girl started attacking us," Sonic nodded.

"Well, there are three Slayers active, each one connected to an emerald," Tails began. "With one emerald stolen from my workshop, and the one he beat Renegade to get…"

Silvia and Shadow both shot glares at Ringo, who slumped down in his seat as Tails went on.

"…Along with the one Emerald we got from the sewers, and one in GUN's possession, that's seven emeralds," Tails pointed out. "So where did the moving, eighth emerald come from?" Tails asked.

"We know that the emeralds are connected to the robots," Amy pointed out. "And none of us have the same energy as a Chaos Emerald, so it was…the robot?"

"Exactly," Tails nodded. "These things must give off the same kind of energy as the Chaos Emeralds, which means that whatever connects them to it goes deeper than a color scheme. It's possible that Eggman is using the emeralds to control the robots, that could explain why they act individually, like living creatures."

"Each robot responds to a different frequency, designated by its color, and Eggman sends the orders in," Shadow reasoned. "Not a bad theory, and of course that means that he has the advantage if he has five emeralds because we don't have them. Which means that we can't use them to stop these things."

"In the meantime, more and more Slayers show up to fight," Knuckles butted in. "Not just that, but they help Eggman get more emeralds."

"Guys, it doesn't matter how they're connected," Sonic interrupted. "The point is, Eggman has more emeralds than us, and if gets them all…Well we all know what happens when Eggman gets all the emeralds."

"Why, what happens?" Drake asked.

"You hear about the 'Eclipse Cannon Scare'?" Tails asked.

"Oh…" Drake said with a low whistle.

"So in other words, the sooner we get the emerald away from GUN and into our hands, the better," Silvia sighed.

Ringo looked up in shock at his friend.

"Wait, you still want to do this?" Ringo asked.

"We don't have a choice now, do we?" Silvia yelled at him. "Since you got us into this mess, and lost the emerald when I threw it to you, we can't get it back until Eggman's taken down!"

"You're not gonna let up on blaming me for this, are you?" Ringo asked.

In answer to his question, Ringo suddenly found himself pinned to the ground again, Silvia's arm around his neck while her knee applied pressure to the back of his skull.

"No, I'm not," Silvia growled in response.

"Oh…" Ringo choked out. "Just asking. I suddenly can't ask a simple question anymore?"

Silvia relinquished her grip and Ringo got back on the chair, choking and coughing for breath.

"Maybe we should take a look at the news again," Drake suggested to his bandmates. "Maybe Perry vouched for us and the police have stopped their search."

"Knowing Perry, he'd probably sell us out for reward money if he could get it," Ringo grumbled. "But if things are getting worse, we should probably know about it."

"Go ahead, we'll try to come up with a plan for GUN," Tails said, tossing the remote to Drake as he and the others walked to the next room.

Drake flicked on the television, while Silvia crossed her arms with a grumpy look on her face.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ringo had no idea how right he was about Perry. While the group had been discussing the Chaos Emeralds, the greasy manager of 'Renegade' was busy talking to the police about what he had witnessed at the Station Square Resort.

"…And when Drake told me what they were up to I begged him not to go with them," Perry sobbed with crocodile tears to the officer. "That poor kid…It has to be some crazy scheme of Ringo's that he got caught up in…"

The officer seemed massively unimpressed by Perry's attempt to win sympathy for his cause. He held up his note pad with a frustrated expression as he tapped the pen against the side of the paper.

"Sir, I understand that you're…distraught about this. But really, at risk of sounding cliché, I just need the facts," The policeman sighed. "Do you know where they might have gone, anyone they've been in contact with?" 

Perry, realizing that the officer wasn't buying his act, wiped away his watery eyes and slicked back his hair.

"Okay, I'll level with ya," Perry offered. "I may have a rough idea of where they went, but I fail to see how I benefit from turning in my meal ticket."

"_You have to be kidding me…_" The officer thought with a groan, Perry looking expectant. _"Okay, time for the 'bad cop' approach…"_

"Sir, you do realize that if you don't tell me everything you know about this, I could arrest you for obstructing justice," The police officer warned.

Perry started to sweat, and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his jacket. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, indecision racing through every fiber of his mind.

Fortunately for the manager, he was spared the effort of trying to come up with an excuse. A sound, much like an explosion, echoed from far off, drawing all eyes to the picture window that overlooked the beach. Out in the ocean floated a lone island, just barely visible in the distance…

And a single plume of smoke was rising from the atoll, pitch black against the sky and growing thicker by the moment.

"What the heck…" Perry muttered as the officer reached for his radio to report the strange happening.

-----------------------------------------------------

While Perry had been 'negotiating' with the police, Rave and Slayer Blue had landed on the island. Blue's eyes scanned across the jungle, and it snapped its fingers as it pointed in the direction of the GUN base.

"Land Ho!" The robot declared through its amplifier.

"Yeah, yeah, so when do we start breaking stuff?" Rave asked, drawing his blade.

"More, after this," Slayer Blue declared, pointing to the trees before snapping its fingers once again. _"Welcome the jungle, we got fun and games…"_

"_I like Guns n' Roses,_" Rave thought with a smile.

As the song bounced through the trees, Rave climbed down from his bike with a grumble. Slayer Blue began stomping through the plant life, with Rave following behind him.

"Eggman, I know you can hear me through this bucket of bolts," Rave warned. "If my bike isn't in one piece when I get back, you won't be either."

Blue suddenly cut the music and came to a halt, Rave almost running right into it. A chain-link fence topped with razor wire, and labeled with a large sign that read 'DANGER-HIGH VOLTAGE' stood in their path now. Beyond the gate the trees had been cleared away all the way down to the beach, where the harbor of the base had been set up.

"How did Red get through this?" Rave asked.

Blue pointed nearby to a section of the fence that had been cut away.

"Well, that's about a nine-point-o on my 'Duh-o-meter.'" Rave grumbled, ducking through the gap. "You coming, maestro?"

"Here we go!" Slayer Blue responded as it followed through the hole.

"Hold it right there!" A voice shouted.

Rave and Blue both looked up as a soldier took aim at them with his weapon.

"Don't move, you're in a restricted area," the soldier warned, pulling loose his radio. "Attention, this is the North patrol reporting two unauthorized individuals on the premises…"

"Unauthorized?" Rave growled. "I don't like the sound of that…what do you think, Blue?"

Blue snapped its fingers, holding up one hand to the guard.

"Respect my **AUTHORIT-AU!**" Blue's speakers boomed, sending the soldier flying backward, all the way down to the water where he landed with a massive splash.

"What the hell was that?" A voice shouted from nearby, a group of soldiers suddenly running up to the rail on the side of one of the ships docked in the harbor.

"Hmph, looks like we got the fuzz on us now," Rave muttered. "Any ideas, iBot?"

All the soldiers were taking aim, as Blue focused its gaze toward the ship the soldiers were standing on. It dug its feet into the ground, and took aim with both hands toward the base of the ship.

"What are you…?" Rave started to ask.

"_**HERE I AM!" **_Slayer Blue 'sang' as the force of its own music forced it back a few inches, _**"ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE!"**_

"Scorpions rock!" Rave shouted over the noise as he was flung away from the robot.

The boat fared less well. The powerful sonic attack began to violently rock the ship, shaking it apart bolt by bolt, including several bolts that held the engine together! As the mighty vessel's propulsion system was forced apart by the loud song, sparking wires shook loose into puddles of oil and gas.

**KRACK-BOOM!**

Even Blue was thrown back by the force of the explosion, which sent a massive column of smoke and fire into the air. Rave got up, feeling the heat on his face even though the flames were a good distance away. He began to feel around for his sword, attempting to ignore the ringing in his ears while needing to discard several shards of exploded ship during his search (His hand-eye coordination and equilibrium shot to Hell by the force of the blast).

"He rocks…Too…Hard…" Rave moaned as he lifted his sword from the ground.

Slayer Blue responded by slowly lifting one arm from its prone position, raising it overhead with its index and pinky fingers extended while the others curled in.

"If you think you two have made enough noise, I'd like to remind you that I still don't have that Chaos Emerald!" Eggman's voice shouted from Blue's extended hand.

"Forget the Chaos Emerald, Slayer Blue is the god of rock," Rave grinned. "We're holding a concert, and all those soldiers coming at us have free tickets to the ass-kickin' show!"

"Soldiers?" Eggman and Slayer Blue's selected voice both said as the robot got up.

Indeed, a troupe of GUN soldiers accompanied by several automated defense robots were pouring out of nearby ships that hadn't been sunk by the explosion, as well from the base itself. Blue snapped its fingers as Eggman sighed.

"I ask you two to do a simple job, and instead you're showing off," He grumbled. "I'm warning you, if you don't come back with that emerald, I'll rip off your arms and give them to Slayer Red!"

"You talking to me or Blue?" Rave asked.

A moment's silence, then, "Both of you." Served as Eggman's answer.

----------------------------

"We interrupt our current story for late-breaking news." DeNews announced over the television as Drake's thumb lifted from the remote. "We have reports of what appears to be some form of off-shore drilling accident on Prison Island just off the coast of Station Square. We go now to helicopter news team, who are enroute to the scene."

"Guys, I think you might want to take a look at this…" Drake called over to Sonic and the others.

"What, drilling rig explosion?" Ringo asked.

"There's no drilling near Prison Island or Station Square. Someone should get their facts straight at the new station." Shadow said with a scowl as he turned to the tv.

The screen now showed another newscaster, holding his microphone tight as he shouted over the whine of the helicopter engine.

"This is Arnie Takeda, reporting to you live as we approach Prison Island to investigate, what witnesses have reported as a large explosion." The reporter called out. "So far, no reports have come from the island itself, so, as always, Station Square News is on the scene to get the full story…What in the name of…!"

The camera suddenly swung to look out the window, showing the remains of the ship that had been blown up a short while ago, smoke still rising from the scraps. Standing in harsh contrast to the metal gray of the dock was Slayer Blue, its hands aiming at an incoming group of soldiers as they took aim.

A hail of bullets launched from the troops, ricocheting off Slayer Blue's metal hide. Off on the left of the screen, Ringo received a small feeling of satisfaction as he recognized Rave hiding behind a large sheet of broken metal to avoid the weapons.

"I…I have no idea what we are seeing here folks!" Arnie shouted.

"It looks like a battle…" Started a muffled voice as the camera swung back to the reporter.

"What are you doing, Sota?! Keep it on them, not me!" Scolded Arnie.

"Sorry!" The cameraman responded as he turned back down to the battle. "Hey, I think the blue thing is saying something…"

Indeed, over the racket of the guns, the helicopter, and Arnie yelling at the pilot to get closer, it was surprisingly easy to make out the words that were coming from Blue's hand speakers.

"_Silly bitch, your weapons can not harm me."_ Blue's recorded armament spoke. _"Don't you know who I am?"_

Rave, still hiding behind his wall, could be seen setting down his sword and covering his ears.

"_**I'M THE JUGGERNAUT BITCH!"**_ The voice screamed out as the air rippled before the killer robot.

At that same instant, Ringo suddenly fell to his knees, clutching his ears in pain.

"AGGH! Turn it off! Turn it off!" Ringo shouted, clearly in great pain as the camera's view spiraled until it splashed into the ocean water.

The television sparked as Drake fumbled with the remote, and smoke rose from it before a loud 'POP!' Filled the workshop. Amy let out a yelp and jumped, landing against Sonic and knocking them both to the ground. Ringo lay flat, his hands clapped over his ears in a near-death grip as he panted for air.

"Thanks…" Ringo said in a soft whisper.

"Um…I didn't turn it off." Drake pointed out, holding the remote up to show it was backwards.

A few bits of seaweed could be seen floating across the screen as Tails walked over to the picture box and gave it a look over.

"I think the speakers blew out." He told the others as Silvia helped Ringo back to his feet.

"Amy, you want to get up now?" Sonic asked, nudging the pink hedgehog.

"Actually, I think she fainted," Rouge observed, leaning in closer before noticing the girl's smile. "Or, she doesn't want to get up."

"Come on Amy, I've kinda gotta save GUN again." Sonic encouraged, pushing Amy up as he got back to his feet as well.

"Aww…" Amy moaned, looking dejected. "Maybe later?"

"Uh…Yeah…Maybe…Tails, fire up the Tornado!" Sonic said as he inched away.

"It's broken, remember?" Shadow reminded his blue counterpart.

"Thanks Shadow, I was trying to forget that." Tails said, looking sick as he clutched his head.

"Well if Tails' flying machine is broken, then how are we supposed to get to the island in time to stop that menace?" Knuckles asked.

Everyone looked at one another, Amy taking a seat on the couch as he rubbed her head in thought.

"Okay, we need a way to get there fast." Amy reasoned.

"The faster, the better." Rouge agreed.

"I could run for it." Sonic suggested.

"Two things Sonic. One, it's an island, and you can't swim. Two, do you seriously you think you could take Rave, and that robot by yourself?" Shadow challenged.

Sonic looked cross as he retorted, "Hey, it's not like I can use Chaos…Con…trol…Hey Shadow, that's it!"

"We both know that I need a Chaos…Eme…rald…to do it!" Shadow mocked.

"Catch!" Tails shouted, suddenly pulling out the cyan emerald they had recovered from the mines and chucking it to Shadow.

The black hedgehog caught it without even looking, and gave a satisfied smirk.

"Well, what are we waiting for then?" He asked.

"Can you get all of us there?" Ringo asked.

"Are you crazy?" Silvia and Shadow both asked at the same time.

Before Shadow could explain the limits of his power, Silvia began jabbing Ringo in the chest with her finger, a look of rage on her face.

"First off, that thing almost killed you just now over the television! Who knows what it can do to you in person?" Silvia scolded. "Secondly, I DON'T WANT YOU GETTING US IN MORE TROUBLE!"

Silvia paused, panting as Rouge patted her on the shoulder.

"Okay, it's alright. Calm down." She said.

"Okay, I'll stay, just don't yell anymore, my ears are still sore." Ringo groaned, clutching his head.

"Good, then I'm staying to make sure you stay." Silvia announced, taking a seat.

"Um…I guess I'll stick around too." Drake said sheepishly.

"No offense, but I don't think you three should be alone here." Tails said, looking nervous. "Maybe I'll stick around too."

"Well if Sonic's going, then I'm going!" Amy declared, grabbing her 'boyfriend's' arm.

"Um…But if you come, then…uh…Who's gonna prepare the great victory dinner for when I come back?" Sonic asked.

"Good save." Shadow whispered.

"Hmm…" Amy looked closely at Sonic. "Promise you'll actually stick around for it?" 

"Just make sure Drake doesn't eat all of it." Sonic requested.

"Hey!" Drake said, looking up at the two.

"Deal!" Amy smiled as she ran to the kitchen. "I'd better get started!"

"Knuckles, how about you?" Shadow asked.

"I definitely want a piece of this." Knuckles nodded. "Who knows, maybe that green one will show up too. I was hoping for a rematch."

"Rouge?" Shadow queried, turning to the bat.

"Sorry Shadow, but I'll stick here. I'm better for spy-work than a straight on fight." Rouge sighed. "We got lucky with Slayer Red, but this one seems a lot stronger."

"Good point, hold down the fort. Sonic, Knuckles, hold on." Shadow ordered, lifting the Chaos Emerald overhead. "Chaos…Control!"

In a flash of blue, all three heroes had vanished. Leaving nothing but a ringing in Ringo's ears.

------------------------------------------

Back aboard the Egg Carrier, Eggman was grinning from ear-to-ear as he watched the feed from Slayers Yellow and Green as they marched through a thick jungle.

"Hey, I want to back to watching Ravey!" Op whined.

"Silence!" Eggman barked.

_SLAP!_

Eggman clutched his reddeining cheek as Op glared at him.

"Don't talk to me that way." She snarled.

"You're a lovely girl, I now know what Rave sees in you." Eggman said, very sarcastically. "Tell you what, why don't you go have Slayer Red mix a smoothie for you and after that…"

Eggman was stopped as something tapped him on the back. He turned around to see Slayer Red pointing at the still present crack in its chest.

"Ahh…Yes…" Eggman remembered, looking at his creation. "It'll be the double-strength armor for you this time. Slayer Yellow, Slayer Green, hold your positions until I say otherwise."

The cameras stopped, showing the outer walls of Tail's workshop. Amy was just visible through the window, cooking up a storm. Eggman smiled as he walked off toward his lab with Red in tow.

"I don't want to miss a second of what's to come." He explained.

-----------------------------------------

_What? That's it? What a rip off!_

_I was hoping for a big brawl with that "hero". I feel like I was cheated_

_Oh well, I guess the big fight is next chapter. The writers are calling it:_

Stormy Horizon 

_I better get more action next time._


End file.
